Harry Potter and the Founder's Sword
by Cat Calls
Summary: Sequel to HPDA. The summer before 7th year, Harry begins his formal Auror training, goes through magical puberty, and catches himself sleepwalking far too many times for it to be a coincidence....
1. Prologue

A/N: I hope this satisfies people for awhile. I'm also hoping to post approximately three more chapters before 'The Day', so hopefully no one will feel bereft. Let it be known here and now that I absolutely refuse to be swayed by anything that happens in Half-Blood Prince. This means that as of the sixteenth, both this story, and its prequel (Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Army) shall henceforth be known as 'Alternate Universe'. The prophets have spoken. 

Disclaimer: Since this is just the prologue, I'm going to say that JK Rowling is the best thing to hit the planet earth, and that I'm not really responsible for what she does to her characters. (Be prepared for some more disclaimer zingers everyone! I'm hoping to get help with them too, so review, and give me some of your best ones!)

**Harry Potter and the Founder's Sword**

**Prologue** –

**A Thousand Years Ago**

_Parry, thrust._

-Clang!-

_Shift left, parry, parry, thrust._

-Clang!- -Crash!-

_Be certain to think about your footwork now! Parry, thrust, parry… _

-Clang!- -Zingg!-

"Ugh!"

_Damn!… Concentrate! This isn't the training field!_

"Godric, my dear, you're a waste of a sword."

Without lowering his weapon, Godric Gryffindor swiped the blood away from the gash on his upper arm. "I could say the same for you, Salazar, I can recall many a fight we've had where you were injured," he informed him in as calm a voice as possible, and lunged again, hoping to catch his enemy off balance.

_Or perhaps this was his friend?_

The semantics no longer really mattered. Salazar was wrong, and he had to see the error of his ways before too many people were murdered. If that meant killing him to keep everyone safe, he would do it. It would break his heart, but he would do it.

Salazar Slytherin smacked Godric's sword away with the blunt face of his own. He grinned, and Godric was reminded of the sneaky littlesquire he'd once befriended. Salazar was surely up to something. It was evident in his eyes.

He stepped back for a moment, and waved his wand over the black and green bejeweled pommel ofhis sword. When he threw himself back into the duel, the next parry was extremely heavy and difficult for Gryffindor to stop. The clang echoed around the chamber, and Godric saw his men wince and shuffle forward again.

"Not now!" he called out to them, knowing even before he looked at it, that his own sword was chipped. "Salazar, we promised that this fight would be sword against sword! There is to be no magic!" Godric's soldiers put their wands away, but kept their swords trained on their enemies.

Salazar sneered, and attacked again. "I have an excellent memory, Godric. But I do remember you saying we weren't allowed to use magicon _each other_."

Another burning slice was taken from Godric's thigh when the next blow came too strong for him to stop it entirely.

"As you can see," Salazar continued, "I am simply using the magic on my sword, not onyou."

Godric's eyes sparked with a sudden hatred. "Then you won't mind if I do the same." He pulled his wand out with his left hand, and waved it at his own ruby studded sword.

Very quickly, the battle became even again, and the fighters continued the duel. Salazar moved again with his wand, and the sword began to glow.

"Salazar, you wretch!" Godric spat, his throat closing up at the thought that he could die very quickly and painfully if that sword were to even touch him. Far be it though for him to fight a battle that wasn't fair. He quickly added the same poisoning feature to his own sword.

Godric knew that both his squires and Salazar's were eyeing each other from across the hall with distaste, their hands gripped tightly on their swords. They were very near joining in. His own squires were desperate to see that the fight was even and fairfor their lord, and Salazar's men were desperate to see that it was _not_. The only thing stopping them now was their lords' orders. Based on the tactics he'd used in this fight thus far, Salazar would likely wish to soon repeal those orders, and Godric would of course, need to kill his opponent before that could happen. The thought repulsed him. How could he kill the man who had in his younger years been his best friend and ally?

Between parries, Salazar added another feature to his sword with a defiant red spark from his wand. Now the sword was not only invincible, and glowed with the poisonous light, it also let off those shameless red sparks of dark magic; painful only to those who denied themselves it's awesome power.

Godric had no such magic, or at the very least, he refused to use that sort of charm. As far as he was concerned, winning a battle with your enemy was not worth losing your morals to do so.

The sparking sword came down upon him, and the instant his own came up to defend the attack, his body became ensconced in a wall of excruciating pain.

The sword lifted away, and immediately Salazar attacked again. Godric knew that he could not properly defend himself from such a sword, so he rolled away from the swing.

How could he fight this sort ofbattle? Salazar had never been a fair man, but to employ such tactics was beyond what Godric had ever expected.

"Salazar, how could you!" he said, bringing up his sword to fight off another blow, and wincing with the pain that immediately wracked his body. He rolled away again, and Salazar's blade pierced the rock floor of the chamber.

"My lord!" came a call, and Salazar nodded, "it is indeed time. Kill them."

"NO!" Godric yelled, watching as Salazar's green-clad squires pulled their own swords, and went to attack the men two men dressed in red.

The clanging of the swords distracted Salazar for a moment, as he smirked fiendishly at the methods his men used against their foes. They were more than ruthless, and Godric's men were felled quickly when they realised that their wands had been locked in place magically by Salazar's men when they were not looking. Both of his men finished their foes, nodded in obedience to their lord, and left the chamber.

Godric, who now lay terrified and in pain on the cold stone floor, looked over helplessly at the dead and staring bodies of his squires. He hated to think that those heaps of robe had once been his friends, and a wave of powerfulhatred swept through him. He lashed out in anger with his sword slicing at Salazar's ankles, just barely nicking the skin. However, he knew it would be enough. The poison infused on his sword would doubtless complete the work he was unable to. Salazar leapt back, his eyes filled with roaring anger, and he once more brought his sword down against Godric's.

The pain infused his body again, and Godric felt as if he were being torn to shreds. He knew that death was approaching, and hoped that his legacy would survive. Thank goodness he had believed the Seer, and sent his children away from the castle so quickly. Soon both he and Salazar would be dead. He from the inevitable strike of Salazar's pain infused blade, and Salazar from the two almost invisible poisoned cuts on his ankles.

"So, you think your children are safe, do you?" Salazar asked viciously, knowing exactly what Godric was thinking, or perhaps he'd simply remembered about his former friend's love for those he'd sired. "My men tell me that they have reached the forest, but daren't go further. I believe they wait for you there, even still."

Godric winced as his enemy now stood back, and circled his prone and twitching body. He couldn't speak, the pain was so intense, and his body convulsed as if after torture. He could just barely raise his blade anymore.

He knew his daughter only stayed because she wanted to see what had befallen her father. He'd sent her off to Hogwarts to let Rowena know what had happened, but evidently she still thought she could rescue him. Such a brave young girl; almost foolishly so.

At the news of his death, no doubt she would wish revenge against Salazar and his family. But Salazar would be dead, and there was little she could do today. She was still quite young, too young for any thoughts of revenge, and of course, she would now have her two younger brothers to look after. The revenge would have to be forfeit. Someone else would deal the revenge at a later time, in a more appropriate manner. Godric prayed that she was intelligent enough to see this.

"I will follow your children for the rest of their lives." Salazar hounded him mercilessly, as his blade continued to fill him with unmentionable pain. "I will rape your daughter, and I will kill your sons. They will never truly be rid of me." It sounded like a promise, but Godric knew it couldn't be. It would all be over when the poison finally reached Salazar's heart. Despite this knowledge, Godric grimaced. The honesty in Salazar's gleaming eyes during his threat was too much for his self-control. He found it very difficult to reconcile the fact that the whole war had been started because his daughter had wished him to betroth her to a muggle. He'd naturally consented. She was his only daughter after all, and she was a true prize for any man. The muggle boy had saved her life, and from what Godric could tell, he was strong and worthy.

Salazar had disagreed. And here he was now, threatening her purity.

Godric pushed away with every speck of power he held, and swung blindly again. Since Salazar had thought him already reasonably incapacitated, the sword was able to bring a deeper slash again across the man's cheek. Salazar immediately brought down his sword again in retaliation against Godric's, and the two charged blades met in the middle, with Salazar pressing his own further and further towards Godric's chest. The whole time, Godric writhed on the floor in waves of agony. He was somehow able to search out wells of energy that he didn't know he owned to fight off his old friend's sword.

"I swear that my family will have their revenge." Godric answered, breathing heavily into Salazar's shoulder, and shuddering at the mounting pain that coursed through his body.

"And I swear that they will forever seek it, but fail endlessly." Salazar spat back, showing crooked teeth to his old friend. "I will be merciful then, kill you quickly, and show your children exactly what they have missed. It will serve to keep them humble. A thousand years will pass, and they will never prevail."

Godric actually nodded, and when Salazar backed off, he let his sword drop beside him. It was hopeless, it was suicide, but in a way he hoped it would be martyrdom too. It was a difficult thing to resign himself to, but he prayed the cause would not suffer.

Salazar growled with glee, and brought down his sword, this time cutting short Godric's last desperate thought of how he would at last see his wife.

The beloved ruby studded sword vanished from the stone floor where it had been dropped, and crimson blood soaked into the stones beneath what remained of Godric Gryffindor's body.

Salazar Slytherin spared the now headless corpse not one last glance before he limped from the room to inform his son of his final requests.


	2. Phoenix, Dog, Serpent, and Lion

A/N: This one goes out to my Lovely Loony Loopy Laura (my sister) who has also decided (finally!) to sign in as a real person on this website! You can find her under the name 'Wolf Whistle' and hopefully I'll be able to convince her to also write some stories. (Hint-hint!)

Snape Disclaimer: Why in the world would any person wish to lay claim to 'Potter', of all things. He's sounding more and more like his father every day. -Of course, _he'd_ probably want to take the credit, arrogant snot-nosed little twit that he is. It's all JK Rowlng's fault.

**Chapter One –**

**Phoenix, Dog, Serpent and Lion**

"Boy!"

_Don't react._

Petunia Dursley poked her head around the corner of the doorway into her nephew's bedroom. "Boy, where are you!"

Thunder rumbled once, and the house shook beneath him. He didn't want to move. His quill was dead still just an inch off the surface of the parchment, and the ink dripped from it, leaving unsightly smudges where it fell.

_Move once and you know you're in trouble._

"BOY, I KNOW YOU'RE HERE! GET DOWNSTAIRS THIS INSTANT!"

_Only nine days left. You can make it. It doesn't matter that she's in your room. She can't do anything to you as long as she doesn't see you. Don't move._

Lightning flashed as she defiantly marched into the room, reached behind the door, and grabbed at something. She must have known it was there. "If you don't get downstairs in ten seconds, I'll… I'll… snap this broom in half!"

_Dear Merlin!_

"NO!" Harry Potter, unable to listen to his inner voice any longer, flung the invisibility cloak from his body, and exploded off the rumpled mattress that was supposed to be his bed. The letter he'd been composing to his best friend, Ron, was left half-finished and forgotten among the sheets.

"EEEEAAAAHH!" his aunt screamed and dropped Harry's most prized possession to the floor with a horrible crunch and thunk. Harry grabbed for it and clutched it tight to his heart, checking the wood over for scratches and dents. His throat rumbled angrily along with the bursts of thunderclap from outside, where it had been storming aggressively for the past three days.

Petunia didn't hear the furious growls from her nephew, nor did she seem to care about the injustice she'd just served to his faithful racing broom.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" Aunt Petunia screeched from beyond the threshold of the door where she was now standing. It was as if she didn't dare put one foot inside the room while the 'freak' actually stood there. She'd thought she was safe as long she'd been alone.

There was one bent twig on the tail of the broom, and Harry sighed with frustration. He'd have to clip it. What a waste.

He'd always had these sort of problems with the Dursleys, but as far as he was concerned, they'd never gone quite so far below the belt as his aunt had just done. How had she known this weakness of his? This broom was the one bit of pure happiness that he currently owned.

Petunia, for her part, didn't look prepared to back down. She did at least change subjects, and the beloved broom was forgotten. "I TOLD YOU TO CLEAN OUT THE GARAGE YESTERDAY! WHY ISN'T IT DONE? AND WHAT DO YOU THINKYOU'RE DOING, USING THAT… THING IN THIS HOUSE!" Petunia pointed at the shimmering material of the invisibility cloak. "I'LL HAVE NO BLASTED YOU-KNOW-WHAT IN THIS HOUSE! GET RID OF IT, THIS INSTANT!"

Harry reeled and stared at her in surprise, ignoring her pointing finger and her comment regarding his invisibility cloak. Far from being surprised at her constantly piercing tone of voice, or of her adamant refusal to let him perform magic, it was the apparent status of the garage that now had him irked. "But I did clean out the garage! I worked on it all of yesterday afternoon!"

"IF YOU CONSIDER THAT A JOB FINISHED, THEN YOU'RE DIMMER THAN I THOUGHT! GET IT DONE, BOY…. NOW!" She screeched, making Harry feel as if he'd just ruptured his eardrums.

Harry couldn't imagine what had happened. He had certainly finished organizing the garage yesterday, and it had been spotless enough even for his neurotic aunt's standards. It wasn't as if he could leave the house or anything, so he'd done it all very meticulously, if just to escape the rest of his family and all the insults for a few hours.

Petunia Dursley took a few daring steps back inside Harry's room, threat written clearly on her pinched face.

"All right! All right! I'll go check it over!" he promised, putting his broom down behind him and holding his hands out in surrender. He was loath to leave his aunt alone anywhere near his things. Especially since she had just threatened his beloved Firebolt. The broom had been a gift from his late godfather, and it was a very expensive model. Well, not so expensive now, seeing as the bristles were awry.

Petunia's horsy lips were drawn tight into a puckered point, and her bony finger adamantly pointed down the stairs.

"I know the way." He said impetuously, knowing as soon as he'd said it, that he should have kept his mouth shut.

He slipped by her quickly, hoping to avoid any more argument, but also hoping to convince her to follow him away from his room. She cuffed him upside the head as he slid past, her hand making a loud popping noise on his ear. Harry winced, swaying a bit. He knew better than to provoke her when she was like this, but a surge of almost painful anger had risen inside him.

He was surprised at the anger. It had been awhile since he'd really felt himself quite_ this_ ready to explode. He'd really thought himself past all of that last summer. Just being back at the Dursleys was testing his emotional mettle. He'd been more angry in less than a month at the Dursleys than he'd been almost all year at school.

Thus far, he'd spent his summer in a sort of super-organizational mode. He'd gotten all of his homework done, and rearranged the three small pieces of furniture in his room four times. He'd even spent more time than necessary on his many chores, trying his best to make the finished product as perfect as possible.

He reckoned he might have just hit a stage in his life where he simply needed to feel busy and useful. It wasn't to please his aunt or uncle. That was for sure. He guessed that he'd just been trying so hard inside that he'd reorganized the garage contrary to the apparent wishes of his aunt.

He ran down the stairs, through the pantry toward the garage, and flicked the light switch. The bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling spluttered, flickered blindingly once and popped, sending back a faint tinkling of broken glass to his ears, and a faint burning smell to his nose.

_Not another one. _Harry rubbed his aching forehead, sighing, and wondered if he was ever going to be allowed near a light fixture again. The Dursleys had already replaced far too many bulbs this summer. Every time he got angry, which was becoming more and more frequent the longer he stayed at the Dursleys, something would explode. Most often, it was lightbulbs.

He pressed the heavily fingerprinted electric garage door opener that his uncle Vernon had installed just inside the door. He was hoping to let in the dim light of the stormy sky outside, negating the needforlightbulbs at all. It didn't do anything on the first press, but then, it hardly ever did these days.

Like the lightbulbs, quite a few of the Dursley's electrical things had been going funny on him recently. Wall sockets sparked and sizzled as he came near and the fridge system flickered on and off every time he went to retrieve food from it. Dudley's expensive gaming systems shut down when he walked past, and the television usually flickered and went all snowy until someone (most often his uncle or cousin) yelled at him to leave the room.

He hadn't had the chance to watch the news all summer, and he wasn't really willing to totally trust the wizarding daily newspaper, so the only time he got any real information about what had been happening outside the house was from his tutor, Remus.

He still hadn't mentioned these funny surges yet to Remus. He had meant to do so last week, but it had slipped his mind. Remus was due to pick him up for another session at about noon, so he made a mental note to say something about it immediately.

He'd already broken the Dursleys' micro when he'd tried to cook up a dish of broccoli for his aunt earlier that summer. As soon as he'd pressed 'start', the door had blown clean across the room, and it had taken him days to remove themushed up broccoliwhich had been plastered to the walls. Needless to say, the Dursleys wouldn't even let him_ near_ the new one.

This was almost nothing compared to what happened when he slept.

So long as he didn't really dream, it was all right. If he did… there was no telling what sort of destruction and chaos he might wake up to. During one particularly violent nightmare, the window of his bedroom had smashed, and Uncle Vernon's car alarm had been set off, waking everyone in the house. Uncle Vernon couldn't figure out how to turn it off for half an hour, by which time most of the neighbours had been awakened, and were peering out their windows or standing on their front porches. His Uncle had been furious enough to try and hit him, but Harry was quick enough on his feet to dodge the swinging fist until Vernon had cooled down somewhat. He was lucky his uncle had been too tired to think properly, or he could have gotten a proper hiding.

Uncle Vernon had said it was all because the appliances knew that he was a 'freak', and to be completely honest, Harry had to agree.

Not that he was really a freak of course, but the idea of his magic being to blame for this chaos was certainly something to consider. Perhaps the electricity wasn't working because it didn't want to work around his magic? It was commonly known that at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he had been going to school for the last six years, electrical currents were impossible to sustain with all of the magic in the air. Muggle systems just went haywire when magic was involved. He'd never really had any problems at the Dursleys before, but his magic was still growing wasn't it? Did this happen to everyone? He had to ask Hermione if she was finding it difficult to be living a muggle life with her parents in his next letter to her. Even if she didn't know from personal experience, she'd probably read up on it or something. Hermione was like that.

He clicked the garage button a few extra times, then when the door still wouldn't move, he stood back a bit from the appliance, and used Aunt Petunia's paisley umbrella to poke at it. The garage door finally sprang to life.

His electrical problems were forgotten entirely as the garage gradually lightened. He stared in abject horror at the mess. Boxing gloves, a towel, and three punching bags were left hanging near the front. They'd been left against the mechanical door, and now that the door wasn't shut, they had fallen backward and were being hammered mercilessly by rain.

The garbage waiting to be put by the kerb had been ripped open, and nasty bits and pieces were spread liberally across the middle of the floor, leading to a motorbike in the corner. Evidently Dudley had caught it with the wheel on his way past. Perhaps he'd been trying to avoid catching his punching bags and gloves, and the garbage had seemed like the better alternative?

The paint cans Harry had put up in the top storage yesterday were back down on the floor, and one had been left open on its side, oozing yellow paint across the concrete. What looked like some sort of failed school report lay crumpled and stomped on amidst the congealing paint. Yellow footprints led from the destroyed papers to the hosepipe, which was unraveled on the floor and leaking a trickle of water out the door and onto the driveway, adding to the already immense puddle that was the Dursleys' front lawn.

Dudley's flashy new motorbike that he'd been given for his seventeenth birthday was covered with dripping muck, and various tools and oily rags were strewn across the floor by its side. A massive helmet for Dudley's equally massive head was sitting innocently amidst a pile of muddy leather gear near the steps to the pantry. A pair of muddied leather boots were laying haphazardly at Harry's feet. The puddle that he hadn't known he was standing in until now, was seeping murky brown liquid into his single good pair of socks.

Harry felt his blood boil.

_Dudley._

He'd done this on purpose. He must have. There's no way he could have made this much of a mess in only a few hours unless he'd been _trying _to get Harry in trouble. He knew Harry had spent all of yesterday evening clearing it out. He'd even stood and taunted his cousin while he worked.

He whipped around with the intent of going and knocking some sense into his hulking lump of a cousin. He felt his wand nearly searing through the pocket of his jeans, eager to hex the oaf. The anger he felt at his cousin accumulating upon the anger he'd felt previously toward his aunt.

That was when he felt it.

He heard a faint buzzing sound in his head, and a wave of dizziness passed over him. His fingers prickled eerily, as if the blood flow was suddenly cut off, or as if they were filled with static electricity.

The dizziness was nothing new. He'd been having light dizzy spells all summer, but never before had he felt his fingers prickle like this. He held his hands up to his eyes to see what it was, Dudley and his misdeed in the garbage-strewn garage immediately cast aside.

He was holding lightning in his hands.

Blue and green jolts of static fire were leaping between the tips of his fingers, and he felt the lightning jump from his left thumb straight toward his left eye. He reeled away from the spark, but it was too late. He could feel the prickling heat sink right into the back of his skull. His eyes burned, turning the world around him brilliantly green and he blinked them a few times, desperately trying to put out the flames.

He wasn't really supposed to be doing magic away from school until he turned seventeen. He'd been given permission to practice defensive magic only when he was supervised by a trained witch or wizard. So far that practice had been relegated to only once a week over at Mrs. Figg's house with Remus.

_So what was this? _It felt untamed and uncontrollable. It was slowly taking him over, prickling like tiny needles under his skin and sending chills down the back of his neck. The anger had triggered it, but once Harry's anger was forgotten, the magic didn't want to diminish. In fact, Harry could feel it growing stronger; more out of his control. It was bubbling up from the deepest part of his stomach like a bad case of heartburn. Harry felt himself let out the tiniest burp of magic to release the pressure.

He heard a pop, and he creaked open his eyes to the greenish-blue tinted world, to see that the lightbulb in the front hall had exploded.

"Oh." He heard himself say, but he felt oddly detached from his own voice.

He knew what the problem was now. He'd suddenly remembered how Hermione had blown up entire chandeliers last year for a few days just because her magic was going through an overhaul.

Just his luck that it would happen here, while he was stuck with these people. He could only hope that it wouldn't get too out of control, and that if it did, someone from the Order of the Phoenix could come and help him out. He had no one to speak with about it, and the Dursleys were bound to be furious. He would undoubtedly be kicked out or locked in his room or something. He just hoped that in the meantime, he could keep himself from blowing up the house.

It was the agoramorphosis. The time in all young wizards or witches lives when they came into their powers. He'd seen Hermione go through the same thing last year, and to be honest, he'd thought at the time, that it was a little funny. Every time his friend Ron had come anywhere near her, she would blow something up or set it ablaze. She'd even had to be sedated. Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse had been quite impressed.

It had been great fun to talk about it with her afterward, and to watch Ron squirm. The agoramorphosis was not something that polite, well-bred witches and wizards were supposed to talk about, and since Ron was part of an old pureblooded family, they followed traditions like that without sometimes stopping to think about why they were following them.

Most witches and wizards refused to talk about the wizarding version of puberty any more than to scoff and possibly wince at the word. As a result, muggleborns and muggle-raised people like he and Hermione were often left in the dark about what the uncontrollable accidental magic signified until after the agoramorphosis had already begun. Lucky for him and for other students like Hermione, professor McGonagall, their head of house, had been able to stutter through a brief and awkward explanation once in class.

In a way, he'd been looking forward to his own agoramorphosis. More because he wanted to grow fully into his powers as soon as possible than anything.

The agoramorphosis hadn't looked very comfortable for Hermione, but then immediately afterward, she'd been able to pull off some very complex transfiguration and had even been able to combine wandless and soundless magic. She said she felt more comfortable in her body afterward, and it made her very happy with herself and her magic.

Harry longed to have that same feeling. It had been so long since he'd been happy with himself, much less comfortable. So in a very strange and backward way, he was happy that his eyes were now burning, as uncomfortable as it may currently be to him.

It was sort of a wizarding rite of passage, and he was proud of it.

Now if he only knew what to do about this green lightning he was holding. He pondered it for a few minutes, watching the lightning leap sporadically from finger to finger. He wasn't sure he really wanted to decide what to do now. He had the dreadful impression that his common sense had departed him, so perhaps his first instinct to send a message to Remus wasn't all that intelligent. Maybe he should just think on it for awhile...

He heard the door slam suddenly behind him, and Dudley's hulking figure sauntered into the house, with his best friend Piers Polkiss right behind. Harry hurriedly stuffed his sparking hands into his pockets, and turned to greet them casually as they passed. He felt the lightning move through his pockets into his hips and down his legs. His toes started to tingle, and he wriggled them around to keep the crackling magic from bursting out all over the floor through his wet socks. It didn't really help, since the lightning and water definitely didn't mix well. Luckily enough, neither Dudley nor Piers looked down.

Dudley eyed his cousin suspiciously, since Harry had never really felt the need to greet him before. Then, in finding only fear and nerves in Harry's posture, he rammed his way past, colliding painfully with Harry's shoulder. "Watch it, freak!" Dudley grumbled at his cousin. The massive boy rubbed at his shoulder, since he had been shocked when he'd slammed into him, as if Harry had spent the last hour rubbing socked feet on plush carpets.

Piers sauntered past, paying Harry a disgusted sneer. The sneer fell a little when he caught sight of the growing flames in Harry's eyes, and his gaze dropped to the sparking floor. He then shuffled wide-eyed away from Harry, giving him a large berth, and began to follow Dudley quickly up the stairs, his eyes carefully avoiding any place near Harry.

Harry felt the lightning change form in his pockets. At once he pulled his hands out to look.

It had turned to fire.

The fire didn't really feel like it was burning him at all. It was actually nicer than the lightning that had been there a few seconds before, so Harry was pleased. The fire was soothing and warm where the lightning had actually been quite itchy.

He was surprised to see the greenish fire in his right hand mould and twist itself into the shape of a small budding flower. He carried it over to meld with the normal flame in his left hand, making one larger flower. The flower began to sprout, growing out of the palms of his clasped hands. The roots dug down under his skin, and he could feel them curling themselves into his very bones. It didn't hurt, it felt like the magic flower was simply looking for some source of water. Harry encouraged it.

The fire flower bent at the stem, curving itself toward his face as if it were searching for the sun. He closed his eyes, and felt the fire grow and surround his head.

_It's sort of like travelling by floo._ He thought. _Like I've just stepped into Ron's fireplace, and I've called a destination. Hermione's agoramorphosis wasn't like this at all._

Suddenly the fire seemed to engulf him as if he _had_ just stepped into a fireplace. The flower disappeared, but he could still feel the roots of it buried deep in the palms of his hands. Since he knew the fire was emanating from _inside_ him, it was feeling less and less like floo travel. He just stood, glowing green and fiery in the front entrance of number four Privet Drive, intermittent lightning still sparking across the floor.

Upon hearing the sound of crackling flames, Piers Polkiss had turned on the stairs and gasped loudly at the sight of the boy he'd often helped Dudley torture as a child. The tall skinny ferocious-looking teen tripped over a step, and flew headlong into Dudley's porky backside, reeling away again in what looked like disgust, only to smash the back of his head painfully on the banister.

"Hey, watch it Polkiss!" Dudley yelped, clutching his backside and turning around to find that Piers was sliding ungainly down the steps and had somehow actually knocked himself out. Dudley looked up at Harry, as if he was about to blame his cousin for his unconscious friend.

"EEEEAAAAAHHHHH!" he shrieked, sounding impeccably like his mother, staring at the flaming Harry. "You're… YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO… THAT!" It was obvious that Dudley was disinclined to use the 'M-word.'

Harry just smiled up at him from his green pyre, watching the flames slowly spreading across the floor away from him. Nothing was _really_ burning, but it was fun to imagine that it could be. He imagined the house he'd hated for his entire life going up in smoke. Such fun! The cupboard under the stairs beckoned his attention, and Harry stared at it, not listening to Dudley's frantic attempts to wake his friend.

The cupboard door looked smaller than it ever had before. It had been Harry's bedroom in this place up until the time he was eleven, and Harry wondered how he had ever fit himself in there. A wistful sigh escaped his lips, and it was filled with countless memories of lonely sleepless nights. He'd actually liked his cupboard, since it was a place all his own. None of the Dursleys had ever gone in there, but he couldn't help thinking about a defenseless child being locked up in such a place.

He stared at the small brass lock whose ominous thunk he had known well as long as he could remember, since it had made that sound every night of his childhood.

The offending lock suddenly exploded, ripping itself off the door, splintering bits of wood across the hall and slamming into the wall opposite, creating a large hole in the drywall. Harry felt an obscene pleasure at the sight of such destruction.

The Dursleys would never be able to put a lock on that door again, he swore.

"MUM!" Dudley finally yelled, giving up on reviving Piers. "MUM, HARRY'S DOING YOU-KNOW-WHAT!"

Petunia, who had come running from the laundry room upon the sound of her son's initial scream, burst up from downstairs, and skidded to a halt in the hallway as she caught sight of Harry.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW?" She screeched.

"NOW WHAT'S ALL THISCRASHING ABOUTTHEN?" Harry heard his uncle proclaim from the back door. He'd obviously been outside working in his back yard shed, had heard the crash from the lock of the cupboard door and had come to investigate.

Harry's personal fire only grew larger at the appearance of the only family he had left in the world. His anger was feeding it.

"Urp!" Petunia squeaked, and shuffled her way back from Harry's expanding flames.

"PETUNIA! THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!" Vernon screamed, his face going brilliantly red. "WE NEED TO GET OUT! SOMEONE CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE!"

"THAT'S NOT THE HOUSE!" She yelled back. "THAT'S THE BOY!"

Harry's uncle seemed to pale at this, and he looked closer at the snapping green flames. Then his ruddy cheeks went back to red, and his neck began to pulse in anger.

Harry heard the lightbulbs in the bathroom and kitchen explode in a shower of sparks and glass. The glass in the front door blew outwards, and the fire pushed Petunia even further out of the hall.

"DIDDY, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" She yelled, her hands shaking and her eyes straining to find her son.

"MUMMY! THE FIRE IS BURNING PIERS! HE'S ON FIRE MUMMY!" Dudley was on the upper steps, backing slowly away in terror from the unconscious, and apparently burning Piers.

Harry looked over to see if he really _was_ burning Dudley's friend, but he knew that it wasn't true. If Dudley were to look closer, he would see that not a stitch of clothing on Piers' body had actually caught fire, even though half his body was now licked with green flames. He wasn't hurt, unless you counted the dirty great lump on the back of his head, which was quite obviously his own stupid fault.

"HARRY!… Harry?" He heard the front door slam again, and Harry turned in relief at the sound of his tutor, and soon-to-be guardian's voice.

"Thank Merlin!" Remus' voice had dropped low in relief at the sight of his charge. Apparently Remus could see that it was only a magical fire that consumed the front hall. "I saw the fire outside… The glass… I heard… What's happening here?"

"Remus! I'm so glad you're here!" Harry tried to call, but what came out of Harry's mouth instead was a cry of the most beautiful phoenix song he'd ever heard. Harry gasped, and clutched at his throat.

Remus smiled at the sound as it escaped Harry's lips. Phoenix song was said to bring courage and love to those of honest heart who heard it, and even watching his best friend's son seeming to be made of green flames, the phoenix cry brought the lonely man an immense sense of happiness.

"Harry, What's happened?" Remus shook his head, as if to clear it of the wooly comfort.

"It's the Agoramorphosis." He answered, or at least he tried to answer. What actually came out of his mouth sounded incredibly like a deep woof and two sharp barks. Harry reeled back from Remus in alarm.

Remus paled, and an expression of grief now washed through his eyes. He knew that sound. It was the sound his best friend had often made. Sirius' animagus form had been that of a large black dog.

Padfoot. The Grim. Snuffles. Harry missed his late Godfather terribly, but over the past year since his godfather's death, he'd slowly been learning to cope with the loss. Every once in awhile the memories would slam into him, and he'd feel terrible all over again, as he was now.

Harry began to shake slightly, narrowing his eyebrows in confusion. Why would he bark like Sirius at a time like this? He certainly hadn't meant to, and it had sounded remarkably realistic.

Remus had noticed Piers' unconscious body now engulfed in the flames, and he saw that it wasn't burning. Neither were any of the draperies or the carpeting.

After swishing a hand cautiously through the flames, he stepped forward into the fire to comfort Harry as much as possible. He put his hand on Harry's shoulder, and grinned comfortingly.

"It'll be all right, Harry. I'll take you to St. Mungo's, and they'll give you some potions or something."

"You'll need to take me unconscious. I won't be able to go anywhere like this." Harry said, even though he knew it sounded much more like, "Hassssaaaaall llltthhhtaaassssssss sssssiiiiatthhhhaaassssss sssithhhissss ttthhhhiiiissssoooooaa aallassssssssstthh!" Speaking snake language was at least something that Harry already knew he could do. Parseltongue was an ability that he'd unintentionally inherited from the Dark-Lord Voldemort when Harry had only been one year old. It was from the same moment that Voldemort's killing curse had backfired, leaving nothing but that horribly obvious, and often painful lightning-bolt scar on Harry's forehead.

Harry had only had the chance to speak to a few snakes in his life, but they had all been quite memorable events. Dudley had been terrified of snakes ever since.

Remus had pulled away from him when Harry spoke in parseltongue, and he was now looking very nervous. Parseltongue was often seen as a dark magic, and most light wizards feared this ability. Harry figured that since he wasn't born with the ability, it didn't really apply to him.

"All right, Harry," Remus said, "I'm probably going to have to stun you. We can't have you doing this when that boy wakes up."

"That's what I already said!" Harry heard the frustrated words clearly, but they came out of his mouth in the threatening roars of a lion.

Again, this was a skill of which he already knew he possessed. The only surprise here was that it had never happened in quite this way. The lion was his own animagus form and so far, he'd only ever been able to 'speak' lion when he looked like one too. Remus chuckled at Harry's stunned confusion.

He heard his aunt Petunia screech in the kitchen, and a slight thump gave Harry the impression that she'd just fainted.

Dudley was staring at his cousin with a horrified expression on his face, but Harry could see that he was also slightly curious. Harry had never been able to perform any proper magic around him after all, and other than an incident in the summer before Harry's fifth year, this was the first time he'd had actual _proof_ of his cousin's strange abilities.

Harry turned his head a little, to see his uncle Vernon staring at him, cracking his knuckles menacingly in the hall to the kitchen. He was obviously not happy with his nephew.

Harry felt his eyes flash with anger and fire and Vernon abruptly let his hands drop. He emitted a frightened grunt and spun away, scurrying out into the back garden to stare at the pyrotechnic spectacle from behind the safety of sliding glass doors.

Harry narrowed his eyes, feeling impulsive.

The glass of the doors shattered, and Vernon let out a horrified screech, retreating even further out into his work shed.

"All right, that's enough of that." Remus remonstrated warningly. He raised his wand, pointing it at Harry and muttered, _"Stupefy."_

* * *

_A/N: I'm sorry if there are any connected words in this chapter, I've been having difficulties with the edit feature of F a n f i c t i o n . n e t and for some reason in the places where I've edited, some of the words showuplikethis. Urgh! If anyone out there knows how to fix it, let me know in a review._


	3. The Portkey

A/N: Yay! I'm going to a Potter party, then I'm going to pick up my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today. I'm all a-twiddle!

Half-Blood Prince Disclaimer: I'm not sure who I am, but I'll let you know when JK Rowling tells me. She's in charge after all.

**Chapter Two – **

**The Portkey**

_Harry was flying on his broomstick, and his broom's tail was flaming green and letting off purple trails of smoke._

_A huge serpent flew by, clutching the black shaft of a twisted and mangled broom. The snake hissed something unintelligible at Harry, but was cut off mid-sentence when Sirius flew in and batted a bludger at it. The bludger smashed the handle of the broom. (Good riddance, thought Harry) Unfortunately, the bludger immediately rebounded in his direction, smashing the handle of his own as well. He heard Sirius scream and gasp his name. He felt weightless, and out of control, plummeting a few feet, only to be caught by the shoulders and lifted back up in the talons of a beautiful golden phoenix._

_This time the feeling of weightlessness had a measure of ease and control to it, and Harry laughed with the relief and delight of it. It was wonderful._

_The phoenix slowly lowered him to the ground, where Sirius already stood waiting for him. He handed Harry a flower with his right hand, and a silver sword with his left. "He went that way." He instructed, pointing, and his godfather changed into a big shaggy black dog and disappeared. The phoenix also gave one last affectionate battle cry and vanished into the mist._

_Harry tucked the flower into his lapel, hefted the sword, and went into the mists, searching for the snake._

"Harry?"

"Mmmmph." Harry mumbled.

"Harry, wake up. It's over."

"Wha?" his tongue felt heavy, and he was pulled carefully into a sitting position. "Hmmm? Remus?" he asked.

"Nice to hear you speaking with your own voice again." He heard Remus laugh, and he forced his eyes open to look at his guardian.

Remus was sitting beside his bed, half holding him up. Harry smiled. "Hey, Remus," he muttered. "What happened?"

Remus laughed and blushed, letting go of Harry's arm now that he looked strong enough to sit up on his own. "Your agoramorphosis happened," he answered, looking a little uncomfortable.

Harry's brain started to kick in a little, and his eyes widened. "D'I kill anyone?" he asked carefully, trying to get his glasses-free eyes to adjust to the sudden excess of blurry light.

"No, but I came pretty close to being murdered when Madam Pomfrey heard what I'd done."

"Er…" Harry felt a bit woozy, and he didn't want to think up any sort of response to that. As far as he could tell, there was a much longer explanation coming.

"Apparently you're not supposed to _stun _someone who is going through a powerful magical change of that sort."

"Er…" said Harry again, "why not?"

"Because it renders the morphing person unconscious, but _not_ their magic. The person who is going through the change sometimes has quite a bit of that magic well under their control while they are awake, and they have to let it go completely wild when they are stunned. Apparently I should have only allowed you to consume appropriate magic inhibiting or anaesthetic potions. Above all, I should not have hit you with a stunner." It sounded as if Remus was quoting Madam Pomfrey, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I feel the need to apologize. I'm afraid the wizarding world tends to keep these sort of rules quiet."

"You're telling me. What happened?"

"Well… The house sort of… caught fire."

"No!" Harry nearly leapt to his feet, feeling incredibly guilty that he'd actually wanted that to happen for a few seconds. "Real fire? Did it actually burn? What happened to everyone-"

"Everyone is fine. I cast a flame freezing charm, and was able to get the Dursleys out in time for the fire brigade to arrive. The Dursley's front hall is a bit of a mess, but it's all right. Young mister Polkiss had a few small burns, but I set them to right before anyone saw him or he woke up. The muggles thought he'd just inhaled too much smoke. I got everyone out quickly by levitation, and I sent you here through Mrs. Figg's fireplace. Mrs. Figg's house had to quietly have a few repairs done too by the way, but it was nothing the magical reversal squad couldn't handle.

Oh, and don't worry about the Dursleys front hallway. The muggles think that the fire started in a faulty electric wire in the cupboard underneath the stairs."

"Er…" Harry said again. "Why did I-"

"Mister Potter! Good to see you awake at last!"

He saw madam Pomfrey, the school nurse come bustling at him, clutching a bottle of potion and it was only then that he realized where he actually was. He was at Hogwarts in the school infirmary. The thought made him feel very comfortable, since he'd always thought of Hogwarts as his home. He knew he wasn't supposed to be here during the summer, so he wondered how it had been arranged.

Harry patted the nightstand beside the bed. "Where are my glasses?"

Madam Pomfrey put his hand to her apron pocket, but didn't reach in. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to hang on to these for a few more hours yet. Just until we can be sure you won't blow anything up. Wouldn't do to have you blast tiny shards of glass into your eyes or something. Just wait a moment for precaution's sake."

"Okay." Harry refrained from reminding her that he'd been wearing them before, and if they hadn't broken by now, then they were probably safe. He knew from experience not to argue with madam Pomfrey. She would probably make him stay longer just to spite him.

"Drink this down now, that's a good lad. I've got three more of these to give you. You'll only be another fifteen minutes, then you can head off. To _rest!_" she emphasized the last word with a poke of her finger, then once he'd drained it, she thrust a second cup of the same potion at him and sauntered back into her office.

"Why did you bring me here and not St. Mungos?" Harry asked Remus.

"I realized that the Death-Eaters might be searching St. Mungo's for you after seeing the fire at Privet Drive. They like to keep tabs on you, and I didn't want to put you in that sort of danger. Here, at least it's _relatively_ safe. I had to call Poppy away from her vacation, but I don't think she minds for you."

"Right." Harry responded. "Good thinking." He had heard the sort of emphasis Remus had put on the words 'relatively safe', and tried not to think about it.

Last year, the Headmaster of the school, a teacher and a few students had been killed when the school was breached by Voldemort and his Death-Eater supporters. It had all happened only a floor below where he now sat. The wards had been reinforced and altered since then, but the school was still far from adequately protected.

Ever since the second dark war had broken out in earnest over a year ago, people close to Harry had been dying. It was terrible for him, and he missed them all horribly, but often they felt like just another tragic series of events in Harry's nothing-but-tragic life. He was no longer prone to blame throwing, namely at himself, but it did not lessen the pain of their loss any. The most disquieting aspect of it was that since Sirius' death, he hadn't actually _cried _for anyone. There was only so many ways that he could react to the losses, and he'd become quite familiar with silently coping.

"What day is it?" Harry asked cautiously. "How long did it last?"

"July the thirtieth. Your agoramorphosis lasted about eight days."

"Really?" Harry was stunned. Not many people in the wizarding world liked to talk of it, but Harry knew the 'normal' amount of time to be somewhere around five days or less. Now that he analyzed it, he might have even been feeling the effects for a good couple of weeks before it had really started in earnest. It certainly explained all the blown light bulbs and the micro.

"Do you know why I… er…" Harry pointed generally at his mouth, unsure of how to explain his question without sounding silly.

"Barked like a dog? Crowed like a phoenix? All of that?" Remus asked, smiling nervously. "I've an idea, but only you can tell me if I'm correct. To be honest, I've never heard of anyone having quite the reaction you've had, but then again, you are rather unique, and of course, everyone's agoramorphosis is supposed to be different. It's sort of when your magic decides to bare itself."

"Go on then." Harry encouraged. "what's your theory?

"When a wizard dies, Harry, they sometimes leave bits of themselves behind as memory. We don't often realize what we are doing, but even our subconscious may tell us very convincing truths without our understanding. Most of those animals, you've built associations from them to people who have died. I think you just really missed them, and your magic wanted to reveal that in some tangible way."

"So you believe that my magic was… er… honouring them… subconsciously?"

Remus nodded. "That is what I think, yes."

Harry held out the palms of his hands, and cupped them the way they had while holding the flower. He could feel the thrum of its roots still embedded into his bones, and he smiled, remembering the feel of it. He did indeed feel quite happy with his magic now.

Harry jumped when the flower flashed into existence once again. It was a bit like accidental magic, but with a certain element of control. He wondered if he'd be getting in trouble for this, or if the ministry of magic was too busy to bother with him today. This time the plant was made up of the same finely crackling blue and green lightning, not fire. At the appearance of the flower, Remus leapt up and away, knocking over his chair in alarm.

"Hmmm… Maybe…" Harry said, as if he were not performing the magic at all. "I think there might be more to it than that. I definitely wouldn't honour Voldemort. The parseltongue must have been something to do with him." Harry told him distractedly. He concentrated on the flower, not really sure of what he was trying to accomplish with it, and watched curiously as it solidified. The three crackling blue and green petals turned a dark velvety red, and the stem went a solid pale green. He released the stem from its still lightning shaped roots, and pulled his hands away, watching the very real flower that was floating and rotating in the air before him.

He touched it hesitantly, and grasped the stem, feeling the flower come to rest comfortably in his hand.

"It's… It's a lily." Remus whispered.

"Yeah." Harry said, putting the flower close to his nose. It smelled sweet, and vaguely… nostalgic.

"How do you feel?" Remus asked, sitting carefully in his chair once more.

"Pretty good actually." Harry told him, placing the lily on the table by his bedside. "A little woozy still, but sort of like I do when I first wake up. I just feel… I don't know… Hermione said she felt more connected somehow. It's just…I'm not really…" Harry trailed off a bit, not quite sure how to explain it. "I feel strong." He finally muttered, but he knew it was an inadequate description. "Just…"

"I know what you mean." Remus told him, looking like he did in fact understand completely. Remus must have gone through this as well.

Harry was grateful. "You don't mind talking about it?"

Remus shook his head, looking a little uncertain. "Not with you right now, at any rate. I'm just glad I don't have to explain the whole thing to you like I did your father."

Harry laughed. "You had to explain the whole thing to my dad?"

"Yes, I was seventeen. Sirius and he had decided to fly off together on a bit of a jaunt into the forbidden forest. I still don't know why, but when they got back, Sirius was pretty much dragging James and his broomstick, and you could see a little line of trees burning in their wake. Sirius didn't know what was happening either, and they were terrified. I'd already had mine that summer, so I sort of explained it to them. None of us ever had to be sedated, but all three of us had to take potions to help control the various magical outbursts. I ended up having to be secluded though, werewolf and all that."

"My dad set the forbidden forest on fire?" Harry asked, laughing.

"He also blew up a bludger at one point when it came at him while he was playing quidditch."

Harry snorted. "Must've been a good game then."

"Nope, unfortunately it was just a practice, but it ended up being funny anyhow. Some of the shrapnel bits got lodged in Samuel Kenney's… er… posterior. He was captain of the team at the time. A beater."

Harry was laughing quite hard by the end of Remus' explanation, and he felt himself sort of sink back into normal. Or at least, as normal as his life had ever been. He sighed contentedly, and settled deeper into his pillows.

They just smiled at each other for a moment, and Remus ruffled his fingers in Harry's hair in a surprisingly paternal fashion. Harry felt giddy and warm for the first time in months.

"So, how have you been? Other than all of this…"

Harry shrugged. "Same old. Dudley's a great prat, but… you know…I'm alive." He smiled weakly, and Remus understood. Harry had always been the sort of person for whom survival had never really been enough. He would much rather have been with his friends at a time like this. However, there were dangers in the wizarding world these days that made anything beyond simple survival a difficult prospect. He was technically the safest when he was living with his aunt. His mother's blood having protective forces and all of that unfortunate rot.

"Are all my things okay?" Harry asked nervously, hoping that his aunt hadn't followed through with her unspeakable threat to break his beloved broomstick.

"Yeah, Fawkes and I went over and pick everything up right away. Everything's safe."

"Fawkes went to Privet Drive?" Harry asked in amusement. "On your orders?"

Remus blushed slightly. "He's an independent bird, Harry. He doesn't really take orders."

"Yeah, I know, but he did as you asked?"

"Well, yes. I guess he's decided I need him as a companion. Hagrid tells me that phoenixes are light magic seekers. They choose their new human companion based on their loyalty to their previous companion. They don't usually like werewolves, but perhaps that's just because most other werewolves have sort of… questionable… loyalties." He seemed embarrassed. Both due to the untrusting nature of his kind, but also from the apparent revelation that he was someone actually worthy of a phoenix' company.

Harry smiled. "I'm glad he's chosen you then."

Remus grinned "I'm honoured, to put it mildly. He's a beautiful creature."

Harry had a question that he wasn't sure he should be asking, but it had been scrabbling at the edges of his brain all summer. He hadn't felt comfortable discussing anything in front of Mrs. Figg, so whenever Remus had come for tutoring, they'd stuck to mundane subjects. Mostly they'd just gone straight to defense practice.

Besides which, Mrs. Figg's house wasn't exactly a safe haven. Anyone could have been listening. The wards there were less solid than at the Dursleys. "How is everyone doing without… er… Is the Order coping?"

Remus' smile faded. "It's hit us pretty hard, Harry. No one knows who to trust anymore. None of us have any way of deciding who to admit and who to evict, where to look, and what sort of provisions we'll need. It's chaotic. We've missed having a good leadership. Moody and Shacklebolt have taken over as co-presidents, but we've discovered that they can't really agree with each other about _anything_. We've had to change all of the warding for the majority of our safe-houses, and that's taken up most of our time. They couldn't really decide which houses to save, and which houses to let go of."

"Grimmauld Place?"

"That one was the first one to be dealt with, but in the meantime, we lost one other place to an attack while it was vulnerable. Dumbledore had been the secret keeper or the ward watcher for many of the places, and now that he's gone, we need to find people who are willing to take over the jobs. Not too many are willing. It's quite a dangerous position to be in."

"Ward watcher?" Harry asked, confused.

"Just someone whose power holds the wards stable, and regulates the amount of magic." Remus answered. "Some of the funny instruments in his office showed him what has happened in some of the places he wards. He could check up on his houses regularly by looking at the instruments."

Harry felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He'd smashed a lot of Dumbledore's funny whirring instruments once when he was mad, and Dumbledore had just sat there waiting for him to finish.

He must have ruined many of the wards the headmaster had carefully built up for his safe houses. Harry fervently hoped that no one had suffered for his mistake that day. He'd apologized afterwards, and Dumbledore had accepted the apology, and told him that they had all been repaired. Harry felt even more guilty now that he knew the importance of what he had broken. What an idiot he had been.

"Professor Dumbledore did all that?" he asked, his voice filled with worry.

"He did, and more. Without him, we're pretty well lost. Headquarters is mayhem these days. Professor McGonagall has done what she can, but she's not quite as erm… flexible with her power as Albus was. The Death-Eaters know this, and have been taking advantage of the situation. We've recruited like crazy, but we've already lost six of those recruits since the beginning of July."

Harry's heart sank.

He missed the Headmaster's guidance in these moments more than anything. He'd already realized how much professor Dumbledore had done for him, but he'd forgotten simply how _wise_ and powerful the old sorcerer had been, and how often Harry's happiness seemed to revolve around his approval and his guidance. He'd once been called Albus Dumbledore's apprentice, but Harry knew the bond had been far stronger than that. It had been like grandfather and grandson, and he missed the old wizard terribly.

Sure, Albus Dumbledore had made his mistakes. Since he'd been not only headmaster of Hogwarts and a few other very notable titles, he'd also been the head of a very secret organization called 'The Order of the Phoenix', and had sometimes been responsible for many tragic losses and great gains. One particularly grievous mistake of his had sent Harry into a whirling anger, hence smashing all of the warding instruments in his office.

For the past hundred and fifty years, Dumbledore had been silently behind nearly everything of import in wizarding society. He'd had fingers in what seemed like every pie, but was very quiet about it. He always looked like he was in control from a distance.

He'd been a hands-off sort of manipulator and Harry had often hated him for it.

The longer Harry knew him, the more Harry came to learn that Dumbledore had been in charge of almost every part of Harry's life; from the home where he and his parents had hidden from Voldemort, to his life with the Dursleys when the aforementioned hiding place was fatally revealed by Wormtail the traitor.

Dumbledore, being headmaster of his school, kept track of his education; how much he learned, which people he met, and which clothes he wore. Harry could have sworn that Dumbledore had actually kept track of what foods he ate, or didn't, as the case often was when living with the Dursleys during the summers. He'd seemed to know everything, and yet keep himself separate enough to not seem as if he was spying. Silently, Harry had been more frustrated in discovering that the wizard had known all about his home life, and done nothing to resolve it.

Despite the headmaster's meddlesome attitude about his life, Harry had understood quite plainly that Dumbledore was one of the few adults that he could _really_ trust, even though the trust had walked a fine line.

"So, are you excited?" Remus broke through his thoughts, changing the subject.

"Hmmm? About what?"

Remus looked like he wanted to chastise Harry, but thought better of it. "About tomorrow."

_Tomorrow? What's happening tomorrow? _Harry thought, then it clicked. If today was July thirtieth, then _tomorrow _was his birthday.

Harry's expression went immediately from confused to jubilant.

"It's going to be great!"

Anyone else would have been thinking of how many presents they would be getting, how many people would be coming to their party, or how large the cake would have to be to hold so many candles.

_Harry_ was thinking about the ministry, and how he and five of his best friends would be going there for animagus and apparition testing. After that, if they were successful in their apparition tests, he, Ron and Hermione were going to meet with the head of the Auror division to begin secret Auror training. The orientation was supposed to last all day, but Harry didn't mind. He had only ever had one actual birthday party, so he wasn't really all that disappointed that he'd have to miss another one.

"You know the animagus test won't mean as much as we had hoped." Remus said quietly.

Harry shrugged. "I know, I'll already be seventeen by the time you're allowed to be my guardian, but it doesn't matter. I've never really had a proper guardian, so we can pretend. It's just too bad Fudge had to wait this long to set up the test. Even a few months with you as my proper guardian would have been nice. I really hate the fact that they wouldn't let me be your charge unless I became an animagus. Bureaucracy really stinks sometimes."

Remus huffed in agreement. "You're telling me. I'm the one who can't get a job because of it."

"Hermione was right about the treatment of werewolves. It's really horrible."

"So is everything else the ministry does these days." Remus commented. "I don't mind pretending if you don't."

Harry smiled ruefully. It was just his luck that they would let him have a real father only once it was too late.

"Fudge should be out of office soon, so hopefully all of this can stop once we have a new minister."

"Preferably one on our side." Harry said, scowling.

Remus looked to be considering the comment. "You know, that's not a bad idea."

"Huh? What's not?"

"We should try and push the election –totally aboveboard of course, so that someone from the order is chosen as a candidate to go against Fudge. It might set us up in the right way."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "And who would that be? I see few likely candidates."

"Well… It'd have to be someone with connections. Meaning they'd need to already have a job in the ministry."

"Yeah. It'd be difficult for everyone to accept someone if they didn't have the basic bureaucratic experience."

Remus nodded. "That gives us… six possible candidates." He counted them off on his fingers. "Arthur, Kingsley, Tonks, Percy, Madam Bones, and what's-her-name, that quiet lady from the international magical secrecy bureau."

"Isn't Dung a janitor there too?" Harry asked innocently.

Remus looked suddenly horrified. "Could you imagine Mundungus Fletcher as Minister of Magic! The ministry wouldn't hold up even a week against Voldemort!"

"Well, at least he'd get the sleazy drunkards' vote."

"I think we'd be better off with Arthur." Remus insisted.

Harry shook his head. "You can put it to him, but I'm certain he'd never take the job. He's too happy where he is."

"In the 'misusing' muggle artifacts division?"

Harry laughed. It was well known that even though Arthur Weasley was in charge of making sure muggle artifacts didn't get hexed or charmed, it was in fact he who was the one most often hexing and charming muggle items. "Don't let anyone catch you calling it that." Harry insisted.

"I won't." Remus promised.

"It was bad enough that Ron and I crashed his flying car in second year. He doesn't need any more trouble from his boss."

"I'd heard about that…" Remus trailed off as the school matron came bustling back into the room.

Madam Pomfrey ran her wand around him once and handed Harry two bottles of potion. "These are your last two, then you can head home."

He drank the potions, then reached out for the pile of Dudley's old cast offs. He noticed that not only were the rags cleaned and pressed, but the pair of flamboyantly mismatched socks were delicately laid across everything, showing off the knitted pictures of a snitch and a dragon as if they were on display.

"Tell Dobby 'thanks' for cleaning my clothes!" Harry called to the retreating matron.

"How did you know it was him?" Madam Pomfrey looked worried for a second. No one knew, of course, which magical advances Harry might display for the next few days. She looked as if she were afraid that omniscience might be one of them.

Harry smiled, holding up his socks. "Just a hunch. I think it's to do with the socks. He's got a fetish." Dobby the house-elf had actually made these socks for him a few years ago. He must have been very pleased to note that Harry was wearing them when he was brought in. No need to tell the elf that they were practically his last pair without gaping holes in the toes.

"Right." Remus said, helping Harry stand up. "We've got to get you home quickly."

"Er…" Harry realized suddenly that he wasn't quite sure where 'home' was. "Am I supposed to go back to the Dursleys?" he asked Remus, trying to make the question sound innocent. He grabbed the clothes and began to dress.

"No, you'll be coming straight to headquarters with me."

Harry's heart leapt, and he stopped abruptly in the middle of putting on Dudley's old tee shirt, so his eyes were gaping in wonder out the slitted neck hole. "So… Is that it then? Do I ever have to go back?" he muffled.

"No, I don't believe you do."

Harry gulped, and dragged Dudley's grey shirt off his head once more, staring at it. "Are there any robes around here that I can use then?"

Remus looked at him, astonished. "Why? Those clothes are perfectly good."

Harry held the billowing fabric between pinched fingers as though it were insulting. It might be good enough, as in it hadn't yet been patched or frayed, but there was more to it than that. "I'm never going back to the muggles." He explained to Remus. "I'll always be a part of the wizarding world now. I don't hate muggles, but I don't want to be reminded…" he trailed off.

"Maybe we can head in to Diagon Alley early tomorrow morning, and get you a few things. We'll take a bit of time tomorrow night, and celebrate by burning _these_." He plucked disgustedly at Harry's loose fitting tee-shirt. He must have known from Harry's expression that it had once belonged to Dudley.

Harry felt like laughing and crying all at once.

"For now, you need to get home and rest."

Harry nodded, and swept the tee shirt over his head for what he swore would be only the second from last time.

"Harry!"

He heard the excited feminine squeal, saw a flash of fiery red, and felt a weight slam into him. The sudden impact propelled him backwards a few steps, and Remus placed a comforting hand out to stop him flying back down the front stoop of number twelve Grimmauld Place, London.

"Hey, Ginny." Harry grunted, and pushed her away a little to get a good look at her.

He felt as if he actually _had_ gone tumbling down the steps, and he suspected that he looked it too.

Ginny Weasley was absolutely gorgeous. Her eyes were twinkling with excitement, and her face was flushed from running to greet him.

To greet _him._

He'd written to her a few times earlier that summer; once to only remind her that she shouldn't even try her animagus form, since he'd discovered that the underage magic detectors and Mafalda Hopkirk, who was in charge of monitoring them, could still sense the underage wandless magic. He got the feeling from what minister Fudge had said to him last year, that they couldn't tell what _sort_ of magic it was, and that it was almost on the edge of accidental, since it was wandless, but he didn't want her to risk it either way. The other letters to her had been more open and friendly, once she had written back, berating him for trying to coddle her. She said she was going to hex him if he tried to turn into another brother. She said she had enough of those already.

Since being her brother was quite possibly the _last_ thing he wanted, he decided to humour her. It was just like Ginny Weasley to threaten someone if she didn't get her way the first time.

And now she was standing in front of him, looking decidedly yummier than he'd expected.

And she'd just _hugged_ him.

He stood and stared at her for a moment while Remus shuffled his things past him and into the entryway, before his brain slowly chugged into gear again. "Er… It's nice to see you." '_Nice to see you' indeed._ He thought, wondering how on earth he'd suddenly become so perverted.

"You too, Harry! We heard you were ill? What happened? Are you all right?"

Harry let himself be led into the front hallway by the powerful redhead.

"Yeah, it was my agoramorphosis." Harry told her nonchalantly.

"Eeep!" Ginny squeaked, bringing her hand to her mouth in surprise. Her lovely pale skin turned a bright shade of tomato to match her hair. It was only then that Harry remembered that he wasn't supposed to talk about that sort of thing in polite society.

He sighed, "Oh, come off it, Gin. It's not something to be feared! Don't allow this to become some sort of 'occasion-that-should-not-be-named.' It's not like the agoramorphosis is as bad as Voldemort you know!"

"Eep!" Ginny squeaked again, and Harry wasn't sure if she was squeaking because of the word 'agoramorphosis' or the name 'Voldemort', since the Dark Lord's name was often the subject of many a gasp.

Ginny caught herself, and took a deep breath, looking carefully everywhere except at Harry. "I know the ago… agoramorphosis isn't anything like that. You're right." She looked suddenly very proud of herself for actually saying the word out loud, and she looked defiantly into Harry's eyes. "Yes, you're entirely right. I'm not going to be afraid of it."

"Good." Harry nodded, smiling broadly, pleased that she hadn't seemed to notice the name of the darkest wizard in a thousand years. He hadn't _really_ thought she was afraid of Voldemort's name anyhow. So many witches and wizards were, but Ginny Weasley was not one of them.

"I'm going out." Remus said going past them again, towards the door. "I suspect there's something available in the kitchen if you're hungry. I promised Elphias I'd go and check something out at his store tonight. Get some rest, Harry."

"All right." Harry mumbled. "See you later."

"Hey, Mate!" a slightly detached looking Ron Weasley greeted him as he sauntered casually down the steps. "I didn't know it was you coming in. Where've you been all this week? They told us you were ill, and that you had to be taken somewhere for treatment. What happened?" Ron sounded as if he were trying his best to be enthusiastic or worried, but couldn't work up the energy. He looked even a bit ill himself, or as if he had just woken up.

Harry's mouth quirked to the side at his best friend's question though, and he resigned himself to listening to the squeaks and gasps of alarm when he mentioned the nature of his 'illness'.

Indeed, Ron did turn embarrassingly red, but not all of his rouge was from his own embarrassment. Apparently he had some sense of decorum when it came to his sister. "Harry! What… But… Ginny's here!" he sputtered, looking desperately as if he wanted to cover her ears.

"Yes, and I've already told her."

Ron rolled his eyes, looking scandalized. "I should have known you'd do something like that."

"So where's Hermione?" Harry asked. "Is she staying with her folks? Does she have enough protection?"

Ron's momentary smile vanished, and his face went white as a sheet.

"What? Nothing's happened to her, has it? Oh god, No! What's happened? Is she all right?" Harry started to panic, knowing that of all people besides himself, Hermione was one of the next most targeted people on Voldemort's hit list. She was a muggleborn, and Voldemort had spent most of his life trying to kill off people like her. The fact that she was one of Harry's friends made her death all that much more tempting for him.

Ron shook his head, still not looking all that pleased. "She's all right, nothing's happened. Well, nothing like that, anyhow."

"What is it?" Harry asked, hoping Ron wasn't going to avoid the question.

The two redheads were silent for a second, and Ron didn't look like he wanted to talk.

"Hermione's parents found out." Ginny finally mumbled.

"Huh?" Harry asked, at a complete loss to what she meant by those words.

"Hermione's parents. They found out about her involvement in the war." Ginny continued. "I guess you didn't notice how quiet she's always gotten whenever her parents ask about it. They knew that the wizarding world was at war, but she's never really told them everything. They didn't know she had gotten herself onto _the list_. They didn't even know that this place was a Headquarters for an order of fighters. Hermione told them that it was a safe house; a sort of wizarding community centre for displaced people. They said that if she's living with fighters and dangerous folks like us, then she's nothing but a warmonger."

"They found out about Hogsmeade." Ron added, holding up a piece of parchment. "It's all in this letter. I only got it from her an hour ago. They didn't know she'd been there when the fight started. They didn't know how much she's made herself a target. We think my parents might have told them something, not realizing that they were giving the whole thing away."

"Oh no." Harry mumbled, remembering the stress of the moment that Voldemort's Death-Eaters had blown the front door in at the Three Broomsticks pub. Hermione hadn't really been a part of the battle, but she'd still been there just as the Death-Eaters had arrived, and she'd definitely played an important role in relaying the message to the rest of the Order.

"They also know about everything that happened in the Department of Mysteries."

Harry's composure withered before their eyes. That had likely been the day that he and his friends had brought the most attention to themselves, eventually making the Death-Eaters go after each of them, and Hermione in particular had had a harrowing experience the summer before. Ron's brother had been tortured, and Hermione and her family had been attacked. Harry had the suspicion that Hermione had only told them the bare essentials about _why_ they'd been targeted. "They wouldn't have taken that well at all would they?" Harry shuddered. "What did they do?"

"Well," Ginny explained, "It was more the fact that she'd been lying to them about it. They weren't happy that she'd been telling all of those half truths."

"You can't blame her for it really," Ron interjected. "I probably would've done the same."

"But Ron, they're her _parents!"_ Ginny burst out. "She can't _lie _to them!"

"And they're also _Muggles!"_ Ron spat in return. "She can't just go telling them _everything!_"

"Muggle or not," Harry interjected, noticing that a sibling argument was bound to crop up, "Hermione knows things about the war that most people shouldn't. She knows things that other _wizards_ don't even know. People who are not a part of the Order are not privy to Order secrets. Yes, she probably should have been a little more forthright, but she's still got to be a careful about what she says sometimes, or-"

"They won't let her come back." Ron's words ground Harry's arguments to a stop.

"They _what?" _

"They won't let her come back to Hogwarts this year. They say being a witch is too dangerous for her. They're sending her to the local comprehensive."

Harry looked back at Ron, feeling alarmed, and slightly faint. "But…" He noticed that Ron seemed to be having difficulty holding in tears. "But she's brilliant at magic!"

"She wrote to me just now, saying I couldn't try and contact her anymore, and that she wouldn't be back at Hogwarts. She said it was for the best."

"What would possess them to think that their denial will be enough to keep her away from it? That's a bit gullible for them to believe that sort of thing, isn't it? She's stronger than that."

Ron brightened slightly at that. "You're right!"

"She's too smart to let their disdain slow her down, Ron. She'll be there, don't you worry."

Ron darkened again. "But what about tomorrow? What about the training? She won't be able to join us! She'll be trapped! Urgh! This is exactly what we always went through with YOU every year! I thought we'd be done with it today!"

Harry had to think about that one a bit. If her parents were against Hogwarts, there was no way they would let her train with the Aurors for the next month. "Come to think of it," he muttered, "why would her parents act so Dursleyish? They seemed very nice when we met them last Christmas. Mrs. Granger wouldn't leave your mum alone, she was thrilled to see all the sorts of things your mum could do with her wand. Why would she suddenly be so afraid of magic?"

"I dunno." Said Ron, looking frustrated.

"Are there any papers that need signing for any of you to do this Auror training thing?" Ginny piped up, changing the subject.

"I think so," Ron said, looking thoughtful. "Maybe just a few temporary things. Nothing substantial yet, I don't think. I don't think they've ever had to deal with an underaged witch signing on for it before."

"Well you need to find out. If there's nothing important, she could just sneak away and come to the ministry, couldn't she?"

"If her parents found out…" Harry shook his head.

"They'd have kittens about it." Ron agreed.

"Well, maybe we'll just have to help her with it a bit." Ginny said. "She's seventeen this September, so after that, she won't need to sneak out anymore. She'll be of age, and it'll be her choice of what to do."

"But what will we do until then?" Ron asked, looking bereft. "Her parents won't let her get any owl post without them reading it first. We can't find out what's going on at her end, and she won't know what we've been thinking over here. Ugh!" Ron stamped his foot in frustration. "This is just like trying to talk to you in the summers, and I hate it!"

Ginny grinned, looking as if she had just recalled something important. "Then we'll just have to go and see her, won't we?

"How?" Ron asked, looking disheartened.

"You're of age, and able to do magic aren't you, dear brother?" She asked, sounding a bit naughty. Harry felt a shiver run down his spine at the sound. He had a feeling he could get to appreciate Ginny's sense of adventure.

"Well duh, I've only been hexing you every chance I get." Ron said, shaking his head. He'd been seventeen since March. Ginny would only be turning sixteen in August.

"Fine, I'll only show you this if and _only if_ you promise to stop with all of that. I'm not of age yet, so I can't defend myself from you."

Much to Harry's surprise, Ron bent himself to his knees, and put his clasped hands up under his sister's chin in pleading prayer. "Never again, I swear it."

"Right then, now that I have your word, there's a certain book upstairs that describes the making of and how to get around the ministry tracking of portkeys…"

"Brilliant!" Ron yelled, and raced away up the stairs. "C'mon Gin! Show me! We're going tonight!" he yelled over his shoulder.

After settling himself in, and heading to the library to join the youngest Weasleys, Harry realized that Grimmauld Place was quieter than Harry had ever seen it. All of the Weasleys other than Ginny and Ron had been spending a few days out at the Burrow, and Harry deeply regretted the fact that he wasn't able to visit. The Weasley house was always so much more inviting than Sirius' old house. What with so many people, and so much happening, it was usually easy for Harry to just feel like one of the family. Grimmauld Place more often than not, felt like a tomb.

Remus had gone off in search of Elphias Doge, who Ron said had apparently discovered a clever way to charm a wand holster, and was showing off all of its tricks to at least four other Order members this evening at his combat shop. Doge had promised to send one to both Ron and Ginny after they'd been tested properly.

So it seemed that now Harry, Ron and Ginny were alone in the house.

The gloomy atmosphere of the Order of the Phoenix headquarters was difficult to quench, even beneath multiple layers of fresh paint. Fresh carpets had replaced the old mouldy ones, and most of the dark artifacts from the reign of Sirius' mother were long since gone, but the house still felt barren, as if Sirius had never really lived there at all. No pictures adorned the walls other than those few whose wandering subjects were trustworthy, and might have access to other useful places. Very few times had Harry been in a place that looked so forlorn.

Grimmauld place was a spot people came to fight, so it almost seemed useless to pretend that sometimes this was not the last place some of them ever saw. Its previous owner, Sirius Black, had died just after leaving these rooms, and so had four or five others, who had committed themselves to the war cause.

Harry hated this house. Too bad for him, since his godfather had left the horrid place to him in his will. He had the feeling that the house would never really feel as if it belonged to him.

Ron and Ginny were only here today because they were in danger, and Grimmauld Place had certain enchantments in place that made it more secure than most other wizarding homes. The Burrow had apparently been charmed up too, but number twelve Grimmauld Place was hidden underneath centuries of security alarms and decade old safety charms. It was so old that a lot of the charms hiding the house were quite obscure, and not so easily broken as modern charms.

Harry realized that the fidelius charm must have been replaced. The charm required a trustworthy person to keep the secret of where the house was hidden. Only that one person could reveal the secret if they so chose, and Professor Dumbledore had been that person before. Now, Harry realized it was likely Remus who was the new secret keeper, since Harry would never have even been able to see the house if he weren't.

The three of them spent the evening in the old library, studying the charm to create a portkey. A few of the books seemed to have gone missing, since they had obviously been dark arts books, but the rest although they could be a little dangerous, were still sitting happily on the shelves, awaiting their perusal.

Harry had doubted that Ron could pull together enough information and learn the incantation in just under a few hours. But there they were, in his and Ron's room at around midnight that evening, getting ready to cast a very illegal charm on a stuffed frog that had once belonged to Ginny.

"Are you ready?" Ron asked, looking slightly peaked. His palms were obviously sweaty, and he rubbed them nervously on his jeans. He still appeared to be quite determined, despite his nerves.

"Last chance mate." Harry insisted. "Only one thing goes wonky, and you'll probably be in big trouble."

Ron nodded. "Let's get it over with." He turned to the stuffed frog, pulled out his wand and closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, his hands were steady and his voice firm. _"Portus"_

The three just sat and stared at each other for a while, and after a minute had passed, Harry began to feel the trepidation leak away from him.

After five whole minutes had gone by, and no owls had flown through the open window, Ron let out a tense breath of air that he hadn't known he was holding. "Just my luck, that when I can finally do magic away from school, I start to use it for illegal charms," he finally said, chuckling morbidly. "Some light wizard I am."

"So the ministry hasn't noticed?" Harry asked dumbly. "We're safe to go?"

Ron's face broke into a wide grin. "Looks that way mate."

"All right then, let's see if this sucker works." Ginny said, placing one finger on the stuffed frog's back.

Ron and Harry did the same.

"Three… Two… One…" Ron muttered.

Harry felt a jerk behind his navel, and he was suddenly flying through the air, Ron and Ginny bumping against him and wind and colours flying around them whipping their hair every which way. Ginny looked like a little fireball as she flew beside him.

In a moment of madness, Harry hoped Ron had the right address. He wouldn't want to be arriving at some cranky muggle neighbour's house in the middle of the night.

They all landed with a thump, and collapsed in a heap on a pink and grey flowered carpet in the middle of what must have been Hermione's family room.

Harry had less than five seconds to absorb the feeling of having Ginny collapsed half on top of him before a horrible rasping screeching sound rent the air, and all three of them leapt to their feet in surprise.

"What's that horrible noise!" Ron yelled, putting his hands up to his ears and scuttling behind a flower patterned sofa for protection.

Harry stared in abject horror at the blank expressions on his friends' faces. They really didn't know what it was?

"Stop right there, whoever you are!" A booming voice commanded above the horrible wails.

They'd forgotten about the Muggle burglar alarms.


	4. Hermione

A/N: I'm a first rate idiot. It's official. I meant to update this a looooong time ago, but I've had a case of what my sister so affectionately called 'writers apathy'. I knew I hadto write, I knew what I wanted to write, but with the release of HBP, I just honestly didn't care. So, I apologize. I'll try to keep this one going as a proper writer should have. I may not have quite as regular an update as I have previously, (My business is booming, and I'm going a little crazy.) so please, faithful readers, have pity on me!

Lockheart Disclaimer: Here man! Give credit where it is due! I say that everything written here is -of course- completely due to my wonderful writing skills and the awesome power of my brain! I knew I had it in me!

**Chapter Three - **

**Hermione**

The lights flashed on, and the three intruders scattered like cockroaches.

"What are you doing here!" Hermione Granger shrieked, now standing in front of her enraged father, looking as if she wanted to pull her wand on all of them, but didn't dare while her father was in the room. Mr. Granger had come down the stairs first, and nearly punched a hole in the little plastic keypad, trying to stop the wailing alarm. The siren had been turned off, but there was a small dent in the plaster beside it in the shape of Mister Granger's fist.

Ginny leaned on the large bay window to stand herself up, and the alarm began blaring again. She ripped her hand away from the pane of glass as if it had burned her. Mr. Granger snarled, and punched the keypad again, silencing the screeching once more.

He was a tall thin man, with a wiry mess of grey hair, and hunched shoulders as if he was carrying a heavy knapsack. He glared at the three of them with misty sleep covered eyes, and brandished a cricket bat in his left hand.

"What's going on!" Ron asked, scrambling up from behind the coffee table.

"That's what I'd like to know!" Mr. Granger snarled, now carefully shielding his pyjama-clad daughter who was still standing on the stairs.

Harry looked up at Mr. Granger in alarm and anger. "What do you mean?" He growled back. "You're the one who's apparently keeping Hermione out of Hogwarts. What's gotten into you!"

Mr. Granger slowly began to turn purple with rage, causing Harry to flinch mentally. This reminded him too much of his uncle. "If you think for one minute that I'll change my mind, you're sadly mistaken! What did you think I'd do? Just be all merry when I've heard that my daughter has almost gotten herself killed oh, say… five or six times? She is _my_ daughter, and she will NOT be a witch anymore if that's the sort of shenanigans she'll be up to at that school!"

Harry looked over at Hermione, and for some reason she didn't look angry. The comment should have made her furious. Hermione was very proud to be a witch, and Harry had to wonder why she was being so loose about this.

Ron stepped forward. "Just what sort of safety do you think you're providing for her? She's already made herself a target just by being magical in the first place, do you think keeping her from a proper education is going to protect her?"

"THAT is not a proper education, and she wouldn't have made herself a target if you hadn't dragged her into it! From now on, you will have no contact whatsoever-"

"Dad! Just hold on a second!" Hermione interrupted him, her face suddenly alarmed. "You're making me sever my friendships!"

"I AM NOW!" Mister Granger bellowed, making it sound very final and very brutal.

Harry, Ginny and Ron stared dumbfounded at Mister Granger. How in the world had it come to this? Mister Granger had come to Grimmauld Place last Christmas, and he hadn't seemed at all like this. Why had he changed his mind this drastically? There had to be something more that Hermione had done to deserve this powerful a retaliation. It didn't seem fitting for the crime at all. Especially since during all last Christmas, Mister Granger had actually seemed like quite an affable man. He'd been interested in all of the little aspects of wizarding life that they'd showed him. This side of him just didn't make sense.

"All right." Hermione said quietly to her father, and Harry, Ron and Ginny gaped at her.

"What? Hermione, you can't be serious!" Ron exploded.

"Yes Ron, I am." Hermione cut him off, looking for all the world like she meant it. "I love my parents, and they really only want what's best for me."

This wasn't happening. Why was she doing this? Hermione wasn't like this. Hermione should have fought back. She would never have caved so easily.

"NO!" Harry yelled, bringing up his wand. "I don't believe you! Who are you and what have you done with the real Hermione!"

Harry saw Ron blanch beside him. Ginny was also pale, but at Harry's words, she too raised her wand, and pointed it at the now terrified-looking Mister Granger. Any other person using those words would have probably been joking, but Harry was dead serious. In fact, when Harry had his wand raised the way it was right now, in a fierce dueling stance, he was always serious.

The would-be impostor Hermione rolled her eyes. "You saved me from a troll in first year."

"Not good enough." Ginny barked. "Anyone could have heard that one. Ron's told enough people."

"Fine! You want specifics? Ron, you're afraid of spiders. Ginny, you're the bat-bogey queen. Harry, you've got a stag for a patronus, and you often call him 'Prongs'. Prongs was originally your father's animagus. Fox, Tiger, Lion," she added, pointing to each of them in succession, "Sidetrack, Sabertooth, Greymane. Don't forget our good friends Wrinkles and Stickyfoot of course." Harry began to smile, and listened to the continued ramblings with relief.

Hermione continued, "Would you like a full history of our friendship then? We've had good times of it with Moony at least once a month near a town that's changed drastically since our first year. Our favourite pub, which just happens to have unknowingly named itself after two of us, is owned and operated by someone that stupid Ron _can't stop staring at every stupid time we go!"_

"All right, Hermione, we believe you already." Ron grumbled, blushing a bit at her words. "And I don't stare at Madam Rosmerta," he added indignantly, scuffing his shoes together a bit.

Harry and Ginny had both lowered their wands by this point, so Hermione obviously agreed that she could stop. "Right." she said, pursing her lips together in anger. "Then what are you all still doing here?"

Ron looked crestfallen. "But Hermione-"

"I've made up my _mind, Ronald_."

Ron winced, and went even more brilliantly red. Very few people called him by his full name, and those who did, used it intentionally to raise his ire.

Harry looked over at Mister Granger, who was grinning triumphantly at the three visitors. He seemed to be unable to focus on any of them properly, and his triumph was dulled a bit by a vaguely tired feel to the look in his eyes.

No one really knew what to say. Hermione was obviously convinced, but something seemed wrong about this. Harry looked at her closely, and met her eyes. "Hermione are you sure?"

"There is no way I'll be coming back to Hogwarts this year. You couldn't force me to disobey my parents." Hermione said, with all seriousness, and Harry suddenly understood.

She was lying.

Hermione Granger was a fabulous actress. He very nearly clapped enthusiastically at her performance, and he imagined her taking a modest bow. He very quickly and carefully schooled his expression.

"Well, if you've decided for sure then, we bloody well won't stop you." He answered with the same amount of seriousness, anger, and a bit of reluctant understanding thrown in for good measure. She nodded only the barest amount.

"NO! Harry, we can't let her! No!" Ron whined, horrible watery shimmers collecting in the corners of his eyes.

Harry tugged on Ron's arm. "We have to Ron, she's made her decision, and you know the way she is when she's decided something." He tried to squeeze his friend's hand to let him know that he wasn't serious about it, but Ron didn't seem to take it that way. Harry realized that it was much like a gesture of comfort to someone who was desperate and about to permanently lose a very important friend.

"Merlin, No!" Ron said, pulling away and rushing up to the banister. "No, Hermione, you can't just _leave_ the wizarding world! I won't be able to live without you!"

Hermione blanched slightly, but regained her composure when her father stepped menacingly in front of her, glaring at Ron's flushed face.

"You will not speak of _my daughter_ that way!" He growled. Evidently he'd just worked out the intricacies of Ron's feelings toward Hermione, and he didn't like it.

"Get out of my way!" Ron nearly screamed, lifting his wand up suddenly to point at Mister Granger's face. "Don't do this!" his breath was coming in short desperate gasps, and he looked as if he might pass out any second.

"Ron!" Ginny yelled, to hold him back, pulling against his wand arm to keep him from aiming properly.

"Dad, hold on a minute!" Hermione leapt forward, and put a careful hand on her father's shoulder. "They don't understand. Let me talk to them alone for a second… you know, say goodbye properly and everything. They deserve an explanation." She said carefully.

Ron was stopped in his tracks, ready to let a curse fly should Mister Granger attempt to stop him again.

"Please, Dad, just ten minutes, and I'll say my goodbyes. All right? Go on upstairs, I'll be all right. We won't tell anyone they're here either. We'll just let them leave again once I've said goodbye. You know, keep ourselves out of it all."

Mister Granger glared menacingly at the frantic teen-aged wizard standing in front of him, and slowly backed away up the steps, eyeing Ron's wand with every step he took. He nodded, spun around at the top landing, and stomped off.

They heard a low grunt of frustration, the loud slam of an upstairs door, and Hermione promptly threw herself into Ron's surprised arms.

"Oh, Ron!" She whispered softly. "You great lout! It was so nice of you to say that!"

"Hermione, you can't just leave. You can't." Ron mumbled back, clutching at her, patting down her flyaway hair as if she might disappear.

Hermione chuckled. "Cast a silencing charm." She whispered.

Ron pulled away, looking confused for a second, before sudden hope gleamed in his eyes. He raised his wand immediately.

_"Silencio." _A blue beam of light encircled them all, about ten feet around.

"Good." Hermione nodded happily. "Ron, I'm so sorry for doing that to you, but I needed to make my dad believe me."

"Good show too." Ginny commented, and Harry rolled his eyes at her.

"Huh? You mean you aren't leaving the wizarding world after all?" Ron asked stupidly, letting out a long held breath of relief.

"No, of course not." Hermione said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Ron, you're a dear, but you're not very perceptive."

Ron's eyes narrowed at her. "Only when it's you! Because you're the most bloody aggravating and devious witch to walk the face of this earth!"

Hermione just kept grinning at him. "I'll have to take that as a compliment then, since you can't live without me, apparently."

Ron ignored the barb, and spun around to glare at Harry. "You knew?"

Harry's lips quirked up in a grin, and he shrugged. "I _am_ supposedly a master Legilimens now." He answered.

"You knew she was lying, and you didn't tell me? You let me stand here and make a total prat of myself in front of her _father_!"

Ginny stepped forward. "Just because Harry can read minds, doesn't make it possible for him to put an idea into your head, Ron. You'd need the Imperius curse for that."

"Right." Ron said, looking a little sheepish.

The Imperius curse was one of three unforgivable curses that were highly illegal, and could earn a wizard a lifetime sentence in Azkaban prison if they were even attempted on another human being. It was a controlling curse that made a person do and say things they wouldn't ordinarily think of. It was normally the type of curse Dark wizards used when they wanted to keep certain people under control.

Something struck twelve in Harry's brain with those thoughts, and he whipped around to stare Hermione in the eye. "That's it, isn't it?"

Hermione looked at him, and nodded solemnly. "I can't be sure, and I haven't been able to tell anyone else, but I think that's what it is. They're showing all of the symptoms. I didn't suspect until last week, but by then they'd already done so many things to close me off. I was just so happy to be with them again, I didn't even think…"

"Huh?" said Ginny, obviously feeling as if she was missing something important.

"Oh, Merlin." Ron muttered. "The Imperius curse. It's been put on her father." Ginny gaped at the three friends, and put her fingers up to cover her mouth in alarm.

"My mother too." Hermione explained. "I think they're supposed to be spying or something, and I don't know what to do! The Death-Eaters don't usually use muggles, but if the person controlling them found out that I know, they would kill them! And me!"

She started to shake a bit, and Ron pulled her close to his chest again. "Shh. It'll be all right. We'll tell someone from the Order, and they'll come help them remember. They'll release the curse."

"You can't just _make _someone who is under imperius be released from the curse, Ron. They have to fight it themselves, or else the caster has to die or let it go! I've been trying to subtly prompt them into fighting it, but they're muggles, and I don't know if it works the same way for them. It's not exactly as though I've ever personally fought it off before, so to be honest, I'm not much of a help."

"It'll be all right." Ron said. "If we can get help for them from the order, it'll be okay. Maybe Mad-Eye or Kingsley will know what to do."

"Someone's been tracking the owls coming and going. Reading my mail! I put charms on all of my letter parchment before we left Hogwarts, and each one of them was broken, so I know the first person to read it wasn't the intended recipient, so I couldn't even send you a proper note! No one else knows yet!"

"We understand." Ron repeated. "It's all right. We'll let them all know."

"So, will you be coming to the testing tomorrow? Or will they make you stay here?" Harry asked, changing the subject.

"Of course I'll be there!" Hermione suddenly retorted haughtily. "I wouldn't miss it! It's things like this that I'd be able to stop if I become an auror!"

"What are you going to tell them?" Ginny asked. "How will you keep them from suspecting?"

"I already told them that I was going to the local library to study all day. I _am_ supposed to be going off to the local comprehensive in September, so I told them I needed to work my way through the muggle schooling material. Catch up to my fellows and that. They understand."

Harry snorted. "No, they don't. But they will. Once they're freed from the imperius."

"You're right," Hermione nodded. "But until then, we can go to the ministry every day, and they won't be the wiser. They'll think I'm going to the library."

"Right, well, we'd best be going then." Ginny interrupted. "We didn't tell anyone we were going, see? So they might have come looking for us, and gotten worried when they couldn't find us."

"Oh!" Hermione winced. "I remember Professor McGonagall had a set of ward monitors for Grimmauld Place! She'll know you've left!"

"McGonagall has ward moniters?" Harry asked, confused.

"Yes, Dumbledore apparently left them to her. Besides, You know my parents are sort of unintentionally spying. They might be telling the Death-Eaters you're here right now! You have to go!"

"Right." Harry nodded quickly. "What about you? Won't our coming here cause any problems for you?"

Hermione paused for a second. "I don't know. They seem to want to keep me at home. I'm not sure that's Voldemort's typical modus operandi. He might have something specific planned for me. If he knows you've been here, he might cause trouble."

Harry nodded. "We'll send someone to check it out. Ron? A portkey. Quickly please!"

"You came by portkey?" Hermione asked, looking impressed.

"Yeah, Gin here found a book that shows how to make them, and hide them from the ministry's detection." Ron answered, looking around for their stuffed frog.

Hermione looked impressed, "Oh! You'll have to show me that tomorrow!"

Ron laughed. "I promise. In fact, how were you planning on getting to the ministry tomorrow?"

"I thought I'd take the train." Hermione said, blushing.

"That'll take too long." Ron said, shaking his head. "You'd have to leave at five in the morning just to get there on time. Your parents would never believe that. Here." He handed her one of the cushions off the couch. "I'll make this into a portkey for you to come to Grimmauld Place. Put it somewhere that someone won't move it or touch it until tomorrow."

Hermione grabbed it, and threw the couch cushion back where it started. "No, not that. Use this." She said, picking up a particularly ugly chipped sailor boy figurine from atop the mantle. "They won't notice if this is missing." She handed it to him, and he placed it back on the mantle.

"A portkey works best if you don't move it around too much." He explained. "At least, the ones you don't want the ministry to know about do. Just touch it when it's time to go, and count down from three. It won't be on a timer, so you can leave whenever your parents are out of the room. Will that be all right?"

"Perfect." Hermione nodded once.

"_Portus" _Ron said, pointing his wand at the little figurine, a look of intense concentration on his face. Once the figurine had stopped glowing, he said, "Right then, now for our own."

Ginny handed him the stuffed frog that had fallen to the floor, and he did the same to this one, holding it as steady as possible with his left hand.

"I'm glad you guys came. I've been going insane thinking no one was going to help me. I really do care about my parents, and I know this isn't really them, but it's just… difficult."

"We'll always help you, Hermione. We'll figure something out." Ron assured her, squeezing her hand.

"Now for the silencing charm." Hermione reminded him, waving her arm in a circle.

Ron waved his wand in an arc, and removed the silencing charm from the room.

"Oh, Ron. Thank you so much." She whispered, rushing forward, grabbing the sides of his face and kissing him hard on the lips.

Harry's eyes widened in surprise, and Ginny looked nonchalantly away from the kissing couple, grinning a little.

When Hermione pulled away, Ron blinked in vacant astonishment a few times, and Harry had to rush forward to grab at the portkey which his friend nearly dropped. He carefully held it as steady as possible, while Ron gathered his wits. Hermione nodded at him once firmly, as though she had just completed an especially satisfying homework assignment, then nodded at the others in much the same fashion for a farewell gesture.

Ron moved forward again, as if to pull Hermione back to him, but Harry grabbed his wrist, yanking it back toward the frog. Ginny put her hand on one frog leg, and clutched the back of Ron's shirt, since he didn't seem to have any controlled motor skills left, and was still trying to move toward Hermione.

"See you tomorrow then." Hermione whispered with a touch of relief in her voice.

"Huh? Tomorrow?" Ron said dazedly, just as Harry nodded at her and said, "Three, two, one," and the portkey whipped them away to the comforting gloom of Grimmauld Place.

Harry landed on the hard floor of the kitchen with a thump, and before he had a chance to think, much less try and untangle himself from Ron and Ginny, he heard the terrified squeals of Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh thank Merlin, you're safe! Just where did you think you were going! Who made up that portkey! What's going on here!"

Harry looked around, and saw Ginny being hauled to her feet by her livid mother, and Ron being chastised by a pointing finger.

Mrs. Weasley looked very tired. She obviously hadn't planned on a visit to Grimmauld Place tonight, since she was still in a dressing gown. The ragged worry in her voice indicated that she had actually suspected some sort of foul play in the sudden disappearance of her youngest children. She'd lost weight since Charlie's death, and Harry suddenly felt unbelievably guilty for worrying her.

Harry also saw the terrible image of a peeved-looking Professor Minerva McGonagall. She was standing at the side of the kitchen table, arms crossed, lips pursed, and toe tapping impatiently.

Even more disturbing was Remus who sat uncomfortably in one of the chairs, looking utterly devastated. Harry knew the werewolf's disappointment would hurt him the most of anyone's.

The most frightening of these images however, was that of Professor Severus Snape leaning victoriously against the doorframe, glaring at the three students who seemed to have been delivered out of nowhere into the kitchen of Grimmauld place. Snape was always ready to see a Potter being reprimanded, so he stayed where he was, grinning evilly, and clutching a hand carefully to his left forearm.

Harry felt horrible. What had made them even consider trying to leave by a portkey? Someone had obviously found them out. Just how much trouble were they in, exactly? Had the ministry detected it? Was Ron in trouble?

McGonagall spoke first, her voice heavy with threat. "I hope you three are very happy with the results of your little excursion. It will undoubtedly be the last time any of you are allowed to be alone this summer. You've wasted our time here tonight making us wait and worry, and from now on, it'll just keep happening as long as we are forced to mind you at every turn. I'm severely disappointed in you three." Professor McGonagall's nose rose in the air, and Harry very nearly quivered at the sight.

"Wait, professor. Hear me out!" He stopped her bravely. She didn't take well to interruptions, and Harry knew he was going to pay for it later unless he could make this a really convincing narrative. "It was Hermione! We think she's in trouble!"

The look of disappointment vanished, to be replaced by a look of intense fear. Harry knew by the look in her eyes that he'd said the magic words. Hermione really was McGonagall's favourite student, and the thought of her in danger was worth a little worry. "What sort of trouble?" She snapped. Snape huffed and rolled his eyes, as if he was impatient to see the verbal flogging he'd come to witness.

"Her parents. She thinks they've been put under the imperius curse in order to spy on us. They aren't letting her come back to Hogwarts this year, and someone's reading and all of her mail."

"How heartwarming." Snape sneered. "The poor muggles are in trouble. I can assure you, the Death-Eaters would do nothing of the sort. That would be only a half measure from their perspective."

McGonagall gave him an icy glare, and Snape returned the gesture.

"How would Miss Granger not coming back to school be in any way productive for Death-Eaters?" McGonagall pointed out. "If it were Death-Eaters, they would benefit more from just killing them. Creating fear is their usual style."

Harry stopped. Wait a minute. How would the Death-Eaters spy on the Order if neither Hermione or her parents were anywhere near it? Just what exactly did they have planned for Hermione?

"I don't know." He finally mumbled. "Maybe it's not Death-Eaters then?"

"Right, well you've thought this whole thing through thoroughly, of course." Professor Snape spat. "No doubt this was simply a ruse to try out something illegal. You're incredibly lucky the ministry hasn't detected that Portkey."

"Yes we were very lucky." Ron said aggressively, surprising everyone. "But unfortunately, we needed to talk to Hermione, and there was no other way to go about the act. Owls are being trapped left and right, fireplace floos are being monitored, and she doesn't have a connection to the system anyhow. We don't have the ability to apparate yet, and there was no one here we could send. Just what did you expect us to do! Now that I think about it, we could have tried somehow to get your attention, but how were we to know you weren't in an important meeting or at an attack or something? How were we supposed to get ahold of you? We didn't know where anyone was!"

"Ron, calm down!" Harry said, putting his hand out to lightly touch the irate redhead's shoulder. Ron was breathing heavily, and his ears were flushed red with anger.

"Right." Said professor McGonagall, turning to look at Snape, as if to consider his reaction to her decision. "Suffice it to say that they understood the underlying issues. I think an illegal portkey, charmed to keep the magic usage detectors silent, was probably the best thing these students could have done given the circumstances. It certainly got our attention."

Snape gaped at her, then shut his mouth, and sneered angrily, but didn't say anything, still hiding behind one crossed arm as if he were protecting his stomach.

It hit Harry in that moment, that Snape was now somehow beholden to McGonagall, since she would be the new Headmaster at Hogwarts. She was going to be his new boss, so he now had to be completely respectful if he wanted to keep his position. They'd always been a bit at loggerheads before, likely because of the long-standing Gryffindor – Slytherin house clashes. Now it seemed that McGonagall had the right to assume a sort of command over the Slytherin head-of-house. Harry smirked a bit at the thought.

"Hm-erm!" A throat was cleared forcefully just outside the door of the kitchen, breaking the sudden silence of the darkened room, and everyone present jumped. Harry thought he saw Professor McGonagall's cheeks turn a bit pink. "Hm-erm!" The sound came once more, much louder.

A short, handsome, silver-haired man strode through the open door. He was wearing a brown night robe and cap with a somewhat incongruous wand holster strapped to his wrist. He cleared his throat again. Harry wasn't sure if he was clearing his throat intentionally to let them know he was there, or if he was simply having an off day with his throat. Whatever it was, the man paused, and surveyed the assembled group, looking slightly bemused.

"Er… Bit late for a meeting. Did I miss the notice or something?" the man asked, his voice low and unnaturally gravelled. There was the slight trace of a Highlander accent hidden beneath layers of posh Londoner. "HM-ERM!" he cleared his throat again, and walked further into the kitchen. "Sorry for interrupting," he grumbled merrily as he passed. "I just wanted to get a glass of water."

"Not a problem Cameron, we were just finishing up." McGonagall said, smiling sweetly at the man by the sink.

Harry raised his eyebrows to Ginny, his eyes flicking between the two adults, and she snorted out a half-laugh.

The man named Cameron filled a waterglass, and tipped it to his lips, downing the whole thing in what looked like one gulp. "Ahh." He said, filling the glass once more, and taking it with him as he moved back across the room. "Oh!" he started, almost dropping the glass when he got a good look at who else besides McGonagall was in the room. "Harry Potter!"

Harry winced. He'd always hated the fact that people everywhere recognized him. "Pleased to meet you." He ground out through his teeth.

Cameron nodded his head, and shook Harry's hand. "Cameron Clerkenwell. Sorry 'bout that." He apologized. "I know you're not the type of person who likes others knowing all his business. You just surprised me."

"It's all right mister Clerkenwell." Harry said, shrugging. "These are my friends Ron and Ginny Weasley."

"Nice to meet you all." He said, shaking their hands too. "I think I recognize you." He added, nodding to Ginny. "I'm an auror, and I was at the Hogwarts battle in June. I witnessed a particularly spectacular hex cast on a Death-Eater, that I swear I'll never forget to my dying day. It made huge green things come flying out of the man's nose and begin attacking him. What exactly do you call that one?"

Ginny's eyes widened. "The Bat-Bogey hex. It's my specialty."

"Stupendous." He marveled, the london side of his accent coming out in full force.

Harry was impressed. He'd thought the man would immediately ask him about his own battle with Voldemort. It had been more than a little obvious, and he'd seen many an auror stop their own business to watch. He'd not expected this man to focus the conversation elsewhere, and Harry was pleasantly surprised that he had. Ginny was also looking very happy with the flattery.

"Right then, if you don't mind. I have to be at work early tomorrow. I'm on morning watch at Azkaban, then I've got a full afternoon's work at the ministry ahead of me too." He winked at the youths, and Harry got the feeling he'd be seeing more of Clerkenwell later.

"Right then, Cameron, I won't be seeing you before you go, so have a good day tomorrow." McGonagall said to him.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Not likely, but thanks all the same. Bloody depressing building Azkaban is. Anyhow, I'm off. Bit more sleep is most definitely in order. Beds here are ruddy uncomfortable. I wish they'd get my place finished right quick!" He downed his second glass of water, and strode out the door. "Bye then, Hm-Erm!" he cleared his throat again as he left the room.

"Right then." Remus said, continuing the end of the conversation they'd stopped. "You say Mister and Mrs. Granger are under the imperius?"

Harry nodded. "All the signs are there. I noticed that Mister Granger's eyes were a little out of focus, and to tell the honest truth, he didn't really look as if he recognized us. He didn't give any indication that he'd ever met us before. I remember him being incredibly nice to us last year, so the only thing I can assume is that he he isn't in control of his own actions."

"Imperius doesn't sound likely though." Remus answered. "If Voldemort was somehow able to get his hands on Hermione's parents, he would have killed them as he already has for five or six other muggleborn families. He would _not_ put them under his control to spy. He doesn't have that sort of regard for muggles. It doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah, I see what you mean." Harry nodded at him. "But that's what I saw. I can't see it being anything else really. Professor Snape," he added quickly, "are there any potions that cause that same reaction?"

Snape looked surprised to have been asked anything. He scowled at Harry, but Harry kept his expression neutral.

"None that I can think of." Snape finally spat. "There's one that makes you obsess about any cause the potions master wants you to, but it doesn't make you change what your opinion is."

"We'll have to bring this up to Misters Moody and Shacklebolt. Someone should be looking into this." McGonagall interjected. "I know Miss Granger is very close to the action, but she might not be the only one in danger. There are at least fourty other Muggleborn children who attend Hogwarts, and they all need to be checked up on."

"In the meantime," Ron spoke up for the first time in awhile, "there's no way her parents are going to sign her forms for preliminary Auror training, so what do we do?"

Ginny's eyes lit up. "Hey! She could get herself a wizarding guardian! Just like you, Harry!"

"Is there any way to do that without having to go through her parents?" Harry asked cautiously.

Remus' eyebrows raised a bit. "There might be…"

"We need to discuss this with Miss Granger first." McGonagall said, nodding. "In the mean time, it's one-o'clock in the morning, and I still have twenty more first-year letters to write, so I'll take my leave of you. Misters Potter, Weasley and Miss Weasley, from now on, please refrain from taking any mode of transportation out of this house without my knowledge. I will not be so lenient the next time something like this occurs!" She spun around and left the room.

Snape scowled at them, and followed her example.

"Well that went all right." Harry muttered.

"Yeah, I was expecting a lot worse." Ron agreed. "I'm glad we could at least help Hermione."

"Goodnight all, see you tomorrow." Ginny said, and yawned. "By the way, Harry. Happy Birthday."

Harry's heart nearly stopped, and his eyes widened.

He was officially seventeen!

"WHUHOOO!" He screeched, leaping into the air. He pulled out his wand, and pointed at Ginny. _"BEC!" _ he shouted.

"Eep!" Ginny said, slapping her hand to her cheek where Harry had just shot a kissing spell.

_"BEC! BEC!" _Harry added kissing spells to Ron and also to Remus. Ron leapt away from the spell, and Remus wrinkled up his nose as the spell hit him in the forehead.

_"Avis! Flora! Flora! Flora! Arbetum oak!" _Harry let loose the image of a flock of bluebirds, added a few shoots of flowering underbrush to the kitchen, and produced a huge oak tree, which sprouted from beside the ice box. The bluebirds were only an image, but with the help of a bit of floorboard transfiguration, the tree and shrubbery were very real objects.

"Harry! Harry! That's enough! I think we get the picture!" Remus said, waving his hands.

But Harry wasn't finished. He did put away his wand, but as soon as he did, he clapped his hands together, shooting green bolts of electricity out liberally across what remained of the floor.

Exotic red and white lilies and a pasture of grass took over the floor of the kitchen, and when Remus, Ron and Ginny were brave enough to turn themselves back to face Harry, they saw that he'd disappeared. In his place was a huge golden lion with a thick black mane, faint black circles around his eyes, and a shocking grey patch in the form of a lightning bolt running through the fur near the top of his scalp.

"Greymane, stop it!" Ron laughed. "I'm glad you're happy you can legally do magic, but this is a bit much!"

Harry, in the form of Greymane the lion, roared and stood up on his hind legs. He did an awkward-looking balletic leap, and smacked one of the chirruping bluebirds with his huge paw. He waited for another second with his face low to the grass, and wiggled his rear-end in the air. His low growl indicated that the hapless bluebirds were doomed. Even if they were only a magical image, and not the real thing, his cat form thought they might be a tasty snack.

Ron laughed at him, and changed into his own animagus form. Ginny looked slightly left out, and her frown at what the boys were planning made it all the more clear that she would not stand for it.

Ginny threw herself at Greymane, plowing her hip into his side, sending him for a bit of a roll, and he stopped only when he hit the counter cupboards. Ron in the form of Sidetrack the fox jumped up onto one of the kitchen chairs, and threw himself into the air, snapping his jaws neatly around one of the poor defenseless bluebirds.

"Ron! What are you doing!" Ginny yelled at her brother the fox, and Sidetrack grinned, staring at her ambivalently while he maliciously pretended to gulp down the fake feathery snack, licking his chops as it disappeared completely. He knew that if she were allowed to be in her own animagus form, she'd be dong exactly the same thing, and he was teasing her. They didn't really taste like anything anyhow. They were just fun to catch, and she knew it.

Remus just sat there and laughed until tears of mirth streamed down his face.


	5. Dippet and the Alley

A/N: I'm back again. I'll be probably able to update once a month or so from now on, or hopefully more if I can manage it. So happy reading! 

Arthur Weasley Disclaimer: Oh, how exciting! I get to write a disclaimer on this computerizer here! Someone get me some plugs so I can plug it in! What? It's a Labtop? You mean there's no cord and no plug? Wow! That must be magic of some type! I know, I'm supposed to be writing a disclaimer, but let me just see what this button does… _'fizzle'_. Erm… Mollywobbles, do you have any idea what syntax error means?

* * *

**Chapter Four – **

**Dippet and the Alley**

Harry and Ron entered the kitchen at seven o'clock the next morning. They hadn't slept for very long, and Harry's leg muscles felt cramped, since he'd woken up with both legs hanging off the side of the bed as if he'd simply sat down and then fallen asleep on the spot.

Both boys were wide awake now, however, and terribly excited about their trip to the ministry.

The pasture filled with lilies and bushes in the kitchen remained unchanged from the night before. The oak tree stood just as solid in the far corner beside the ice box, but they both grinned at the lack of birds.

"Good morning, Harry! Welcome back, and Happy Birthd- just what exactly happened here?" Harry spun around to see that Mrs. Weasley had arrived, and dropped a couple of bags on the floor behind them. She was staring in awe at the kitchen's new landscaping.

"Much better than before, wouldn't you say?" Ron asked his mother, leading her into the new and improved kitchen. "Harry got a little rambunctious with his new ability to perform magic last night, or rather, early this morning, and decided to do an overhaul of the kitchen."

Mrs. Weasley smiled at Harry. "Good job! I'm sorry I didn't hang around then! It's much more pleasant to look at than those dreadful scuffed up floors you had before, and it certainly adds a bit to the ambiance of these walls."

"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley."

"Call me Molly, dear," she said. "You're seventeen now, after all. All grown up," she sighed, patted his cheek affectionately, and moved over to the counter to magic up some breakfast for them.

Half an hour later, the kitchen was filled to nearly capacity. Hermione had arrived, making Ron stutter and blush. A few other Order members had come to spend the day, and all of the guests were staring about the kitchen in amazement. Arthur Weasley arrived just in time to help his wife finish up the morning meal. Harry looked around the room, which to his surprise, actually felt quite pleasant for once.

Harry, Ron and Hermione finished off their breakfast, and rushed up the stairs to gather their packs. In the upstairs hall on his way back down, Harry turned the corner towards the stairs, and smashed into someone going the opposite direction, sending the smaller person flying backwards.

"Oh, Sorry!" He said, shaking his head and offering his hand to help the other person back up.

"You'd better be, or as soon as I'm feeling more awake, I'd have to hunt you down and torture you. That hurt." Ginny, said, wincing and rubbing her left hip,which had smashed into the banister.

The only thing Harry noticed in that moment was that Ginny was wearing a _very_ slinky long green nightgown. In fact it could easily be said that Harry noticed very little of Ginny other than the very slinky long green nightgown. It took him a moment to actually look at the rest of her.

Her brilliant hair was dull and puffed up on one side of her head as though she had slept on it, and her greying housecoat was slumped down on one shoulder, wide open right to the floor. The nightgown was emerald green, and made of some sort of shiny fabric that flashed tauntingly at Harry as he watched her being pulled up toward him.

He stood and stared dumbly at the girl, no _woman_, that he had just helped to her feet. He felt a bit woozy, and wondered if maybe he wasn't _entirely_ finished with his agoramorphosis. His hand jerked spastically when he realized it was still clasped with hers.

"Well thanks, Harry." Ginny said, sleepily closing the front of her housecoat, and sidling past him, making Harry's brain slowly engage once more.

"Er… anytime." Harry answered with a croak. "S-Sorry for bumping into you."

Ginny walked the rest of the way towards the third-floor bathroom without looking back at him, and closed the door behind her.

Harry sighed, and turned back towards the stairs. Based on her lack of reaction just then, she was too sleep weary to notice anything he'd done. In a strange way, he almost wished she had.

Ron appeared out of the shadows, a barely suppressed grin on his face, making him appear quite smug. Harry blushed and looked as nonchalantly at the ground as he could.

They went down the stairs together, and Harry decided that despite Ron's apparent acceptance of the issue, he needed to watch himself around _all_ of the Weasley brothers. There were five…er rather four other brothers, after all, and Ginny was getting pretty hot. Not to mention what Mr. or Mrs. Weasley would do if they caught him gawping at their daughter.

He cast the issue out of his mind as they arrived downstairs. Rather – as out of his mind as a seventeen-year-old boy could possibly do.

They met up with Professor McGonagall in the entrance hall. Apparently she had been asked to come along with them for a particular reason, but even she didn't really know why, so she couldn't tell them. She said that everything would be explained to them when they reached the ministry.

Remus came down the stairs a minute later, looking as if he could sleep another three hours or so, and gathered a group of them together in the hall.

"Everyone ready to go? Where's Tonks?"

Suddenly a loud thump could be heard from the top of the stairs. "OW!"

"Oh, there she is." Remus sarcastically rolled his eyes.

"I'm here! We can go now!" Nymphadora Tonks came limping down the steps towards the landing. Today she had short, spiked up, multi-coloured hair, and striped stockings, which quite accurately reflected the same colours as her hair. Her long robe was purple, and one of her clumpy high-heeled shoes was broken, the heel flapping uselessly against her ankle. "Bloody shoes." She muttered, leaning on Remus' shoulder, lifting her foot and pointing her wand at the offending garment. _"Reparo."_ The heel sealed itself back to the sole, and the shoe was somewhat whole once again. Harry could see where the seam of the break in the rubber had been before, and knew that the shoe was undoubtedly doomed to break again.

Remus pushed towards the door. "Right, we're off. Everyone stay together, and keep your eyes out, and wands ready. To the ministry first, we have to deal with something specific, then we have a couple of hours to just hang out a bit. Maybe shop?"

Harry smiled, and looked down at the remnants of Dudley's old cast offs. Remus had brought over his trunk, but the clothes he'd been wearing when he began his agoramorphosis were the best ones he had. It wasn't really saying much. He'd been especially worried, knowing he'd be basically getting tested by professional aurors today, and they expected more from his appearance than stained grey jogging pants, and a three sizes too big black tee shirt.

"Molly and Arthur will be bringing Ginny along to the Leaky Cauldron at two o'clock, and we should meet up with the Lovegoods and the Longbottoms there too, so we can all go to the ministry for your tests at the same time."

They took the underground to the ministry. The whole way, everyone kept a watchful eye out for suspicious movement. That included any motion a person nearby made that might construe either moving to arm themselves with a wand, or a motion of an arm that might be a wand already in motion. Very few wizards were able to perform wandless magic, and even fewer still could perform wandless and soundless magic at the same time, so they kept a sound ear on the conversations nearby too.

The fact that Remus, Tonks, and McGonagall were there as protection meant almost nothing to the three students, and they kept their own wands close at hand.

There were a few chillingly close encounters, but luckily, nothing that wielded any results. A man who had reached into his pocket for a lighter took a trip jinx from Tonks, and slid nearly the whole length of the car. Muggles crowded around to help him up, but luckily no one suspected any foul play. A woman who had reached over to hand a few crumpled up bills to a friend suddenly found herself fast asleep when Remus pointed his half-hidden wand at her and did a silent stunning spell. When Remus sheepishly revived her at the next stop, she leapt to her feet, looking frantic, and ran off the train without her bag.

Harry had hesitated a little too long when a man reached into a briefcase to remove some documents, but luckily it wasn't anything dangerous. He had to remind himself that he could legally do magic out of school now. The only person still unable was Hermione, and Harry and Ron by mutual consent hovered over her the entire trip.

**(AN: To those people who have been reviewing to remind me that Hermione is older than both of the boys, I actually started posting the prequel to this story before that news was made available to the general public. I had already mentioned something about Hermione being younger at that point. I apologize but I'm keeping it this way for my own continuity. Thanks!)**

When they arrived at the ministry, Tonks took them in through the broken telephone booth entryway, and Harry shuddered at the memory of the last time he'd been there. It had been the day Sirius had died, just over a year ago.

Although he was slowly coming to understand that Sirius was never coming back, and he was a bit more accepting of his loss, the thought of him still often brought Harry pangs of loneliness. There were some moments he'd been glad that he'd been young when his parents died, since the pain of their loss would have been too overwhelming after he'd known that sort of affection.

Remus stopped at the front desk in the foyer only briefly, and one of the security wizard quickly weighed and measured each of their wands. The man held Remus back a second longer, so he could show him some ID, and then let them pass toward the bank of elevators behind him. The guard gave Harry fleeting fearful looks the throughout the exchange.

Harry noticed that there were now three security witches and wizards at the desk, two more guarding the wall of fireplaces for those who could floo in, and one other beefy looking wizard standing near the elevators. The Minister of Magic seemed to have decided to go all out, stocking up his security. Too bad he wouldn't pay the same sort of attention to his other duties. The man was truly insufferable.

"Right," Remus said, shaking out his wand arm. "We're heading to the families bureau first." He led them all into the elevator, past the threatening looking security wizard and pressed the button for the third floor. When they exited on their level, a youngish brown-skinned man with carefully coiffed black hair, wearing a fluorescent pink robe stepped forward to greet them from around the edge of a long secretary's desk. "Professor McGonagall." He said, bowing slightly, and shaking her hand simultaneously.

"How are you Mister Dippet?"

"Very well, thank you, professor." The man answered heartily, smiling at her with innocent looking brown cherub-round cheeks.

"Good to hear." McGonagall said crisply, with a light grin

"Mister Lupin?" mister Dippet shook Remus' hand. "Good to finally meet you in person. Miss Tonks, then?" he added, doing the same the woman on his right, of whom one part of her hair now matched that of his brilliant robe. "Yes, I recognize you now. I believe we were in the same house at Hogwarts. You were a few years below me. And Mister Potter!" He said, pumping Harry's hand and sounding quite a bit more certain of himself.

"These are my friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger." Harry introduced, stepping back.

"Indeed." Mister Dippet said, catching both of their hands in turn. "Alexander Dippet at your service."

"Er… Grandson of 'headmaster' Dippet perchance?" Harry asked carefully.

Mister Dippet smiled enthusiastically. "Great Merlin what do they feed you boy? I heard you were good…"

Harry blushed again. He'd only wanted to know. He hadn't meant it as showing off or anything. Dumbledore had always had paintings of the previous headmasters in his office, and he'd remembered that one of them had been named Armando Dippet. Not to mention that he'd once seen a pensieve recording in which the old headmaster figured. Alexander somewhat looked like a rounded off version of his grandfather. Where the ex-headmaster had been long and lanky, the man that stood before them was shorter, and had lightly toned muscles evident beneath the garish fabric of his pink robe.

"Yes, he was indeed my grandfather. Anyhow, I work in the families department of the Ministry, and I'm here to straighten out a few things for you. If you wish to know, my position is quite a mixed bag. Something like that of a family lawyer or consultant in muggle terms. I also act as a family counselor and mind healer." As he mentioned this, he looked carefully at Hermione. She nodded to let him know she understood. Apparently Dippet had been somewhat briefed on her situation before this meeting. "Since our wizarding world is reasonably small, youngish witches and wizards such as myself often find ourselves more 'liberally' employed. I've been working part time for the auror division, and I was told I might be seeing you later today as well. It made sense for me to deal with you now since I'll probably be assigned to you three later as your auror confidante."

Harry thought that Mister Dippet's knowledgeable grin made it seem like his _liberal employment _might have more to do with Dippet's broad intelligence than his youth. Harry made it his mission then to try out a bit of legilimency on the man today, just to make sure he was trustworthy. He was an engaging fellow, but Harry knew that for his friends, trusting just anyone was not something he could really allow. It was too dangerous these days.

"I've been asked to provide a private room for this discussion. Follow me. We'll go to my office." He said, and they followed his brilliant robe past desks, cubicles and several interesting-looking gadgets that Harry only belatedly realized must have been magic detectors at work, since they were spewing out smoke signals of various types of magic and letting out squeaky little cries of _'projectus!'_, and _'transmutas!'_. Two witches were hurrying around collecting and checking little slips of paper from the machines.

Mister Dippet led them into his office, closed the door behind himself, and carefully placed a silencing charm around the room.

"Mister Potter, we shall begin with you, since your case seems to be more open and shut than the others. I understand that the person previously stated as your official wizarding guardian, done so directly by your parents in their stead, has passed away recently?"

"Not so recently, but yes. Sirius was declared dead this past spring." Harry answered carefully.

"I'm very sorry to hear that." He said, and Harry believed him. "Am I right in saying that in his will was written the terms that Remus Lupin would be declared your new official wizarding guardian?"

"Yes, those were the terms."

Lupin pulled a rolled parchment from his robes, and handed it over.

Dippet nodded his thanks, but kept speaking to Harry. "The only drawback to said terms being that Mister Lupin is a known werewolf, and cannot officially be seen to be your wizarding guardian unless you've registered yourself as an animagus?"

"There were other –less desirable- options, but I'd like to go with the animagus registry. It's much less… oppressive… to Remus."

"Right, understandably so. So I've heard that as of this afternoon you will be registered as an animagus?"

Harry didn't really know what to say. It was supposed to be secret that that they were registering, and he didn't like the fact that this man was asking these things so blatantly. They had trained as animagi secretly, and they hadn't gone through the proper channels to get their certification. The minister had offered this set-up so they could all be tested quietly.

Dippet looked carefully at Harry. "I spoke with minister Fudge directly at the beginning of this month and he gave me a run down of the basics. I also spoke with Mister Lupin here by floo this morning, and _he,_ at least, deemed it necessary to explain _some_ specifics. I promise on my oath as a wizarding family services member that I will not lie, or break your confidence in any way. It's not only illegal for me to do so, It would also be quite beneath me."

Harry broke into a grin. Dippet had just given Harry more reassurance than at first evident, since Harry had just performed a sort of legilimency on him. Dippet, above all people, was to be trusted. It seemed that although he was a master of legilimency and occlumency himself, he had just _let _Harry have access to his mind. He was completely open to all three students, and Harry felt himself relax. Dippet would be well able to keep their secrets.

"Yes, I'll be registered by this afternoon."

"Right. Then, that solves quite a bit of your problems. If we can fill out these forms…"

"Sir, if you don't mind, why exactly do I need a wizarding guardian still, if I'm already of age?"

Dippet nodded. "To be honest, it's a formality only, saying that you've had someone to guide you to adulthood. You are now in charge of your own choices as a wizard, but a wizarding guardian takes charge of your continued education, and allows you certain strategic places in Wizarding society. It's a formality, to be sure, but sometimes a necessary one."

"Is that so?" Harry asked carefully. "What sorts of things would I be denied without the consent of a wizarding guardian?"

"Well, technically speaking, you _could_ be denied the right to go to Hogwarts this year…"

"What? Really?"

"Your muggle guardians are the only ones with the right to completely _deny_ you anything, since in the muggle world you are still considered to be underage, however a wizarding guardian takes precedence if the muggle guardians deny you something that is –in our society- seen as necessary. Such as education. And for the most part muggle born students don't have that to worry about. Most parents are quite open to the idea, since they've been having magical outbursts in their house since as far as they can remember. Most of them see it as a blessing that their children are not abnormal. However," he added carefully. "Without a record of having _had_ a wizarding guardian when you come of age, you had no opportunity for a wizard to officially say that you came of age. That is mister Lupin's job. To give you adult status as a wizard. If he weren't helping you in this way, you would become a rogue wizard with no childhood identity other than your position in the muggle world. Children come of age one year later in the muggle world, so your Muggle guardians still legally have precedence. You may, as such, be denied future access to Hogwarts, if your relatives wish it to be so."

"WHAT?" Harry spat, feeling decidedly nervous for himself.

"Not to worry, once these papers are signed, you are officially granted the right of having _had_ a wizarding guardian, so the issue becomes null and void, since on paper, you have _had_ a wizarding guardian. See what I mean? It's sort of a formality, but it's an important one. Especially for someone like you. Once you turn eighteen it wouldn't make a difference, since you would be of age in the muggle world too, but I guess it's always best to play it safe in these instances. A year can really make a lot of difference you know."

"Phew." Harry let out a sigh of relief. It was certainly a confusing thought, but if Mister Dippet said it was necessary, then it was necessary. He guessed that even if he hadn't had a wizarding guardian, he would have been safe as long as the Dursleys never discovered that they could legally deny him rights to go to Hogwarts.

"But this brings me now to the second issue at hand. Miss Granger." Mister Dippet looked over at Hermione, and suddenly Harry realized the problem. Hermione, as a muggleborn witch, wouldn't have ever had a wizarding guardian. Hermione was looking decidedly nervous about this too. Ron was holding her hand in what might have been construed as a comforting gesture.

"You should be aware of the fact that most muggleborn witches and wizards are assigned a wizarding guardian when they come of age. It is something that also may be done prematurely if the muggle parents decide they don't have sufficient knowledge of wizarding custom to make decisions based on their child's welfare. They remain the _official_ guardians, but someone else, someone wizarding, may take on the responsibility for their education, and for allowing them adult status in our society."

"I didn't know this." Hermione said carefully.

"However, in your case it is quite a bit more difficult, as I've heard that the issue with your parents is not quite so straightforward?"

"That's right." Hermione said quietly. "We think they're under the Imperius curse."

Dippet nodded. If he was at all surprised, he didn't show it. "Do you have any proof of this?"

Hermione faintly shook her head in denial. "They've been incredibly helpful and accepting of me as a witch and of the wizarding world in general thus far. Just a few weeks ago though, they did a complete about-face, and told me that witches were immoral and ungodly people, and I wasn't to go back to Hogwarts, or contact any of my friends in the wizarding world. I don't know what started it. Our family has never even regularly attended church! I just know that I would go completely mad if I had to leave Hogwarts for good."

"So you are now saying that you wish them not to have educational power over you? You don't believe that they currently have sufficient knowledge of the wizarding world to make that decision on your behalf?"

Hermione nodded, looking quite upset about it all.

"The part about this that becomes complicated is the fact that since they are apparently incapacitated, we cannot get a specific name from your parents of whom they might wish to appoint as your wizarding guardian."

"Oh. Is there a way to circumvent it?" Hermione asked, looking a lot more sturdy than she had on coming in. Dippet certainly seemed to know his stuff. They could all tell that he had something already in mind.

"There is." He said. "We need you to fill out this form stating your suspicions about your parents, and reasons why, etcetera, etcetera… Just fill in the blanks. Then you will have three upstanding persons of the wizarding community sign in place of your parents that say you are telling the truth as a minor, and we will mark down that those three wizarding persons will henceforth be seen as your _tandem_ wizarding guardians. You will need signatures from all three before any educational decision on your behalf can be made. It will be frustrating for awhile, but hopefully we can sort out this problem with your parents soon enough."

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Tonks stiffen, and he whipped his head around to look at her.

"Does that explain the reason that all three of us needed to be here?" she asked carefully.

Remus nodded. "I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you specifics before. I only knew it might be necessary to have a couple of highly regarded wizarding people to sign some forms. Do you think you could?"

Tonks looked quite nervous, but McGonagall only looked pleased. "I've taken on other muggleborns as their wizarding guardian before. I have had a total of fourty-two muggleborn charges already." She explained. "I won't mind doing it again."

"So it isn't a difficult job?" Tonks asked her carefully. "I won't have to be… well... a parent?"

"Is it so odious a task for you to set rules to be followed? If so, speak now." Remus asked, his voice coming out in a bit of a harsh growl. Harry had to wonder what had Remus in such a snit. He scanned the auror and the werewolf's demeanors, and concluded that something beyond the current issues were clearly being fought.

Tonks thought about it a second longer, eyeing Remus carefully as she did. Remus would not meet her eyes, and continued to stare insolently at the door. "No. It's not necessarily odious. Just… unexpected. I don't know what's involved." Remus visibly relaxed at her statement.

"It's not difficult." McGonagall said quietly. "It means you have to keep track of the people you are charged with, and give references for employment when asked. It's a good position to be in, really. You can use it on a resumé as volunteer work, and it makes quite a difference to the muggleborn student in question."

"So will you do it?" Hermione asked Tonks, the desperation clear in her eyes. "Please?"

It seemed that the insistent begging of an underaged witch was too much for Tonks, and she caved. "All right. I'll do it."

"Splendid!" enthused Dippet, coming neatly out of his lawyer act.

He produced page after page of documents to sign, and all forms were dutifully filled in and stamped. Tonks looked especially proud of herself once the papers were filed, and Hermione gave her a brief hug of thanks.

Hermione got her new wizarding guardians to sign a permission form stating that she could use magic while in the ministry during her Auror tutorials. Although this didn't allow her much of a chance to practice, she wouldn't have been able to do anything at home anyhow, since her parents thought she had gotten rid of everything wizarding she owned. Luckily enough, Hermione was better at learning things from reading books anyhow, and she had a very reliable hiding place in a bag with an expanded interior that she'd gotten from a shop in Hogsmeade. She had it hung on the back of her bedroom door, and told her parents it was her knitting bag. They heartily approved of this, especially since she could produce half finished knitting materials from it upon command, and often brought it out to the living room to work on making sweaters and and scarves to put them off the trail.

Dippet signed all the papers as well, did copying charms on all of them, tucked the originals into a file drawer, and handed them their copies to show around.

Once Ron had understood that Hermione and Harry were both safe in the eyes of wizarding law, he'd sat back in his seat looking bored, and waited until the formalities were over with, before hugging both of his friends, and congratulating them on acquiring new wizarding guardians.

"Hey, Harry!" He said after everything was finally put away. "Does this mean you and Hermione are siblings? What with Remus being both your guardians and all?"

Harry and Hermione locked their eyes in surprise. "I hadn't thought of that!" Harry said.

"I guess we are!" Hermione answered, shrugging. "I've never had a brother before."

"Well I've never had a sister, so there you go." Harry said, feeling utterly enthused about the whole thing. He gave her a one armed hug, and they walked out of Dippet's office together, calling thank-you's and other such pleasantries to the counselor as they went.

They made their way back up the elevator, and out the red telephone booth visitor's entry. Professor McGonagall bade them goodbye, and promised that she would meet up with them once more later that afternoon to sign some more forms for Hermione. Immediately upon her exit, all five remaining witches and wizards went on guard, and began the trek to Diagon Alley, where they would begin their shopping.

"So now that's done, how have you two been? How have your summers been so far? Other than the Memorial of course." Hermione asked, trying to keep at least a semblance of conversation, while her eyes darted to and fro, and her wand hand remained hovering above her waistline.

Ron and Harry, who were in much the same position, made to answer her. "It's been actually pretty interesting for once." Harry answered at the same time that Ron said. "It's been a real madhouse."

"Oh yeah?" Hermione asked, sounding as if she wasn't really listening to either of them.

"Yeah." Harry said. "I don't know if you heard, but I went through my agoramorphosis."

Harry heard Tonks gasp loudly from behind him, and Ron visibly stiffened. Harry rolled his eyes.

Hermione grinned enthusiastically, and turned to face him. "Did you really? Is that why Mrs. Weasley said you had been ill? Have you noticed any interesting new skills?"

Harry decided to just answer the last question. "No, not really. I haven't had much of a chance to try them out though, so I'm sure I'll find out something interesting today when we do the testing. I did discover a penchant for shooting lightning out of my fingers." He wiggled his fingers for her, letting the blue-green lightning crackle a bit between his digits.

Hermione laughed, and Harry wondered for a second if she knew what the lightning was exactly. She would probably research it for him if he asked.

The group of them wandered down the street. The Leaky-Cauldron Pub, where the entrance to Diagon Alley was located, was only a few blocks from the ministry visitor's entrance.

"I hope it won't be anything too surprising. We don't want to be bowled over by one of your hexes or something." Hermione finished their conversation, as they crossed the street.

"Yeah. It'd probably be best for me if we can get in a bit of practice ahead of time. My agoramorphosis might have screwed me up a little."

"Can't hurt, can it."

"We've had a very busy summer so far." Ron said loudly, obviously trying to change the subject.

"Really?" Hermione asked, with a smirk on her face that said she could see through his ploy, but didn't mind indulging him. "How so?"

Ron suddenly looked sorry for having spoken, but felt he had to finish. "Well, you were there at Charlie's memorial, so you know how stressful that was for everyone, and afterwards mum and dad had to go on a few trips to deal with a few things Charlie had been working on. One to Romania, to the Dragon enclosure where he worked last year, and one to Wales at the wizarding museum, since he was in charge of the dragon exhibits there." Ron sounded so wistful and sad now, that Harry couldn't help patting him on the back.

"I don't think I told you about this, Harry, but apparently while he was visiting Wales three years ago, he met a girl, and he's been off and on living with her ever since. When he found out about the job at the museum, he pounced on it just so he could be near her. He didn't even tell mum and dad that they were together."

"No way! I didn't even suspect!" Harry had always thought that the Weasleys were a model family, always telling each other everything. Charlie above all had seemed like the perfect son to Molly and Arthur. He was very surprised that he'd been able to keep the news of this -apparently serious- girlfriend quiet.

"Yeah," Ron said distractedly. "It was a lot more serious between them than even we thought at first. Whenever he didn't stay with my parents, he stayed with Tephra and her five year old daughter. My mum was devastated when she found out, since he hadn't told any of us about her beyond mentioning her once or twice as just a friend. He was acting as a father to Morgana, Tephra's daughter and everything!" Ron sighed, looking like he already regretted bringing the subject up, but felt he had to finish telling it anyhow. "Tephra, the poor girl, didn't even know that Charlie had died, and the first she heard about it was from my parents. She'd been trying to get a hold of him for three weeks before my parents showed up and explained to her what had happened. Mum and Dad both came home that night all shaky and crying… it was horrible."

"Oh, Merlin." Hermione muttered, as they stepped in the door of the Leaky Cauldron Pub. "That's awful. The poor girl." She placed her arm behind Ron's back, and squeezed.

Ron shrugged, but Harry could see that the whole thing had affected him more deeply than he was letting on. "She'll probably be coming to visit at some point this summer, so mum and dad are going to want us to stay at the Burrow while she's there."

They walked into the Leaky Cauldron less than a minute later.

The group couldn't afford to lose their concentration now that they were in wizarding territory, and Remus reminded them each with a nudge that they needed to be on their guard at all times. From now until they were home, it might be best to keep the conversation on more mundane issues. Harry sighed with frustration, but nodded to his guardian.

"So how has the Wheezes been faring these last few weeks?" He asked, as they moved toward the back of the pub. Harry felt the horrible rippling sensation of many sets of eyes following his movements. He put in an extra effort to look comfortable and casual. When he had the nerve to look over at one witch in particular, she quickly averted her eyes, and took a casual sip of her tea, and held up the newspaper in front of her face.

"Not too bad, and hopefully you'll get the opportunity to take a look for yourself today." Ron answered. "I should probably stock up on some of their stuff anyhow. Who knows the next chance I'll get to come to Diagon Alley, most likely not until Christmas. Maybe not even then!" Ron sounded horrified.

"And Merlin knows you can't possibly go off to Hogwarts without buying the merchandise to properly torture some poor first year." Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

Remus tapped the bricks on the back alley wall to let them out in to the wizarding shopping centre.

Diagon Alley was quite silent for it being a Sunday, and those people who were out and about didn't look like they were there for any sort of leisurely stroll. The figures bustled hurriedly by, shifting their eyes from side to side, keeping their hands close to their wands.

They all took on the same attitude for the next few minutes as they made their way carefully over to the bank. Once they were there, Remus took Hermione over to one of the desks to change some pounds over to galleons while Tonks, Ron and Harry went underground to visit their vaults. Ron scooped a few silver coins from his family's dwindling pile into his pouch. In his own vault, Harry tried to hide the sparkling mounds of gold from his often envious friend. Harry wondered if he'd even made a dent in this pile since he'd been introduced to the Wizarding world. If he had, he couldn't tell. He decided to grab a little extra, since he knew he'd have to soon buy auror texts and supplies, as well as his Hogwarts things.

On their way back to the main level, the goblin who was steering their cart mumbled something rather startling to Harry.

"Would you like to visit your other vaults sir?"

"Huh?" Harry asked, not really paying attention.

"Your other vaults, Mister Potter. Would you like to perform any transactions in your other vaults today?"

"Other vaults?" Harry's heart began to hammer in his chest.

The goblin gave him a curious side glance. "Your transaction sheets told me that the vault we visited is not the only one you own. You have recently come into possession of two others."

"I have?"

"Indeed. One would be the Black family vault. I understand there are considerable funds there still, although portions of it were already distributed to other vaults through the will, I believe the remainder is yours to do with as you wish. It was passed to you only today, since you have turned seventeen. Pratwreath has been overseer Goblin since just before the passing of old Mrs. Black. You'll have to discuss it with him if you wish to gather any more information regarding this vault."

"Oh," Harry said, suddenly understanding. It was his inheritance from Sirius. "And the other?" he asked cautiously.

"That one I can not tell you. You must know it for yourself before I can admit you." The goblin smirked like he knew a secret of some sort, and his eyes momentarily prompted Harry as if he were supposed to just jump up and say, 'Oh, _that _vault!'

Harry crinkled his brow in confusion, and Ron looked at him suspiciously. "He has to know about it before he can be told where or what it is?"

The goblin nodded officiously, and turned back to his cart, saying no more about it. The expression in his cunning little eyes held little to no clues anymore of what it was about. In fact he seemed to think that this was a normal occurrence in the bank.

Tonks rolled her eyes at Harry behind the goblin's back.

"That's a bit backward isn't it?" Ron mumbled to Harry, shaking his head in bewilderment.

Harry ignored Ron's comment, as he needed to think for a second. He felt that if he were to do anything with the money in Sirius' vault, it would be like sacrilege. The money was really all he had left of his godfather, and it wasn't as if he even needed it. As for the other, well there wasn't much he could do about it unless someone told him which one it was, and why he now had it. "I think I'll leave the Black vault as it is for today, thanks," he said quietly to the goblin, who nodded, and a minute later they pulled to a stop in the lobby.

Ron gave him a curious look as they climbed out of the cart, but said nothing.

They met up with Remus, Tonks and Hermione and the five of them silently left the bank, and headed over to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.

"So, what sorts of robes did you want to try Harry?" Remus spoke up for the first time since leaving the bank. As they walked in the front of the shop, Madam Malkin waved to them from the back, and called out that if they'd like to look around, she'd be with them in just a moment.

"Er…" Harry didn't really know the answer to Remus' question. He'd never worn a proper pair of robes, unless you counted his school uniform, and to be perfectly truthful, Harry didn't. He'd seen plenty of the other students wearing casual robes on Hogsmeade weekends and in fact he could now see a few witches and wizards wearing the same sorts of casual robes outside. He just didn't know what sort of clothes were fashionable right now. He embarrassingly realized at that moment, that he'd never bothered to check. "Couldn't we all try on a few things?" he asked tentatively. "I don't want to feel ridiculous." He figured that if everyone else were trying on something than at least he could see what sorts of things they chose, and go with something similar.

"Oh, don't worry about it." Ron said, "It's practically impossible to look ridiculous. There are so many different styles of robes out there right now that none of them are really _wrong_. As long as you look tidy, no one will care."

Harry raised his eyebrows a little, and pointed to a frilly purple thing hanging from one of the mannequins in the window. "Then what do you call that?"

"That's a girl's robe Harry, of course it would look funny on you!" Ron said, snickering into the palm of his hand

"Well, that's why I need your help, Ron." Harry insisted. "I don't even know the difference. Can't you all just choose something to try on too?"

"I don't think so." Said Tonks, cautiously eyeing the frilly robe with a touch of distaste. "I'll just keep an eye out, if it's all right." Harry thought that perhaps she had a slightly more discerning sense of taste than the rest, and Madam Malkin's regular style wasn't quite her cup of tea.

"I don't mind trying something on." Remus said carefully. "But I don't think I'll be getting anything for myself today."

Ron shrugged. "I'm in the same boat. I guess I could try on a few things."

Harry sighed, and felt a little guilty. Neither Ron nor Remus had ever had much money. Harry could tell that Ron's robes were ill fitted to his lanky frame, and wondered which brother he'd inherited them from. Remus, as a werewolf, was unable to keep a steady job, and was consistently patching and repairing worn old clothes, since he couldn't afford new ones. The clothes he wore today were repaired once at the hem and had rather shabby looking brown patches over the elbows.

Harry mentally considered his bulging money pouch. "Tell you what, if you find something you like, I'll buy it for you. Just please, make sure I don't leave here looking like a total dunce!"

Ron looked ready to argue. Hermione wrinkled her nose in distaste. Obviously she felt that she should be excluded from this, but wanted Ron to feel as if he wasn't being singled out because his family was poor. "Sounds all right to me." She said cautiously, looking at Ron.

Remus also nodded. "I can live with that sort of trade."

They all went through the store, and selected armfuls of robes off the racks. Madam Malkin came by after awhile to help, but it was evident that she had other business to attend to, and after a few suggestions of colouring and style for each of them, she left them to their own devices.

Harry ended up with three casual robes that he thought were rather comfortable and nice. They were simple-looking designs, but each had a slightly different style to it. One was dark blue with bits of yellow trim here and there, one slate grey, and one forest green, as Madam Malkin had suggested, 'to match your eyes'. He took a minute to look at a few formal robes, but didn't buy any, since he wasn't sure he'd have the need for them in the near future. The formal robes weren't too expensive for him, but he really didn't want to bring attention to himself by wearing something too flashy. He could always come back once he had his apparition license. At least he now knew what sorts of wizarding clothes were what.

Ron came away looking moderately pleased with a maroon robe that had black lining. He'd only given in after Hermione had insisted that it was indeed the best colour for him. She had cooed over the robe enough that Ron was able to forget his distaste for the colour and place it in with Harry's pile.

Hermione hadn't taken long to find a nice yellow robe she liked, and Remus was the last one to find a robe which faded slowly from dark brown to navy blue as it went top to bottom. Despite Harry's initial thoughts regarding the combination of colours, the robe looked quite handsome on his new guardian, and the price wasn't too high, so Remus added it to the pile. Tonks had rolled her eyes at his selection at first, but seeing it on him had her grinning and blushing.

Harry had been reading the sign behind the desk when Remus dropped the robe onto the pile.

"We'll take the muggle alternate charm on all of them if it's possible to get it done quickly." He told Madam Malkin as she tallied up the totals.

"No, Harry! That would be too expensive!" Ron said, his eyes widening in alarm.

"Don't worry about it. I've got enough with me. I won't need to go back to Gringotts."

Ron looked confused for a second. Clearly, he had meant that the charm would be too expensive to give away as a gift, but Harry had made it seem like the only complaint was that Harry wouldn't have enough cash with him. The redhead winced, but kept his mouth shut after that other than to say a tense thank you.

Madam Malkin nodded to Harry with an encouraging smile. "Right, I'll be just a moment with them then." And she carried the pile into the back room.

The charm that he'd requested was so that in order for them to blend in with muggles, the robes would look like regular muggle clothing, but only to the eyes of a non-magic person. He thought it was an ingenious idea, and it meant he could wear his robes without worrying too much about where he was going.

When Madam Malkin came back, she handed him four bags. "The charms have to be renewed every year or so, or they fade. If it's been awhile since it was done, then make sure you don't go walking amongst muggles without checking the charm first. You can tell it's working if the fabric glows faintly when you touch your wand to the hems."

"All right, thank you." Harry said, taking one of the bags.

Hermione who had just rejoined them, was looking a little flustered when Harry finally had his purchases together. "Right then, you just pay for those, and then we'll head over to Fred and George's. That's right. Hurry it up, and we'll be on our way." She looked over her shoulder, then her hands began to twine around each other nervously.

Harry narrowed his eyes at her, and Ron looked worried. "Hermione are you all right?"

Hermione nodded, but her face flushed as she did so, and Harry could tell she was lying. She was trying very hard to keep her eyes away from his, but the evasion in her eyes itself was something to note.

"Hermione…" He warned, and she winced. "What's happened?" he asked. Whatever it was that was getting Hermione all rattled couldn't have been anything good.

"Oh, Harry!" She moaned. "I don't know how she found out, but…" She walked over to the seats by the front of the shop. She'd been sitting there reading magazines while the others had finished selecting their robes. She picked up a page, which Harry could tell was out of that day's Daily Prophet. The first page had obviously been torn off, and Harry briefly wondered what was so important on the front page that a person would tear it off. Then he realized that the lack of front page made the black and white picture of himself on the second page stand out.

He stared dumbfounded at the glaring headline.

_Harry Potter Has Explosive Agoramorphosis: _

_Boy-Who-Lived, In For Powerful Surprise._

His eyes darted over angrily to read the name of the author.

"Rita Skeeter, again!" He practically exploded. "Just what in the name of Merlin does that horrible… No good…" he was trying desperately not to lose his cool, but in the meantime, his face was turning horribly red. He was pleased to see that his photograph was doing the same, and trying to hide behind the edge of the frame. He wondered who had taken it, and when. He was still a little young-looking, so he suspected it was one left over from the tri-wizard tournament of his fourth year.

Ron grabbed the paper out of Harry's hands, and read the same headline. Remus looked over his shoulder, and they both also went bright pink as the words sunk in.

"People were staring at me in the Leaky-Cauldron. I thought it was just normal stares, but they knew all about this." Harry said in a low and dangerous voice. "Isn't anything in this world allowed to be kept relatively private? I want to know how she knew about this, and I want her dealt with! It's slander, isn't it?"

Hermione bit her lip nervously, and looked carefully at the paper. "You should probably read the whole thing, Harry."

_Harry Potter Has Explosive Agoramorphosis: _

_Boy-Who-Lived, In For Powerful Surprise._

_By Rita Skeeter_

_Harry Potter, known to many as the 'Boy-Who-Lived', nearly burned down his family's home this past July 22. An unnamed witness to the proceedings was willing to give an exclusive interview with yours truly, and the story of his coming of age is indeed fascinating._

_Apparently Potter's magic went so out of control that he knocked a muggle boy unconscious, shot lightning from his hands, set quite a horrific fire blazing in the front hall of his family's house, and spouted off a few hissing sentences in parseltongue. (Which is well known to be one of the darkest arts.)_

_No one was seriously hurt in the blaze, or from any of Potter's other magical outbursts, but the magical detectors in the ministry registered a quiet 2.5 reading on the area around Mister Potter's house, growing to over 8.7 in a matter of mere minutes. That reading is nearly unheard of for pure untamed magic, and the families bureau at the Ministry had to be notified of the extenuating circumstances by one of Harry's mentors, Remus Lupin. Mister Lupin caught them just in time, since a team of investigators was all ready to head over to Mister Potter's house to snap the boy's wand._

_According to another unnamed source, Potter was removed from the premises immediately, and taken to a secure location for the amazingly full _**eight**_ days of his agoramorphosis._

_Since Mister Potter's magnificent duel with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named back in June, many people have been wondering; how dangerous is he really? Should he be allowed to use such awesome power without acceptable ministry guidance? Just what, exactly, can this boy do?_

_Now that he's come into his majority, and gone through the most powerful agoramorphosis recorded in more than a century, I believe we're about to find out._

Harry sighed, and dropped the paper back onto the table. "Well, it could have been worse. She certainly is a nosy witch, isn't she?"

Hermione nodded, but didn't say anything.

"I'll bet anything that her witness is Dudley." Harry said, his lips pursing tight in anger. "Now that I'm seventeen and I've left the Dursleys, the wards won't be as strong as they were. She might have somehow been able to convince 'Big D' to talk to her. Maybe she flew there in animagus form or something."

"Right!" Ron broke in, and turned to Hermione. "Didn't you warn her that if she ever wrote rubbish about one of us again, that you'd tell the authorities that she was an illegal animagus?"

Hermione nodded. "I could do that, but the damage is already done. I might just do it for spite, to get back at her, but then we wouldn't have anything else to hold over her and threaten her with. I think she's just called my bluff."

"I just can't believe…" Harry started, his face going brilliantly red again. He'd thought he would be proud of the fact that he'd had such a powerful agoramorphosis, but it seemed that some of Ron's anti-agoramorphosis sentiment had still rubbed off on him. Now he was just embarrassed about the whole thing, and he knew, in the back of his mind that his change of heart was really what made him frustrated.

"That she would stoop this low?" Ron asked, finishing Harry's sentence.

"No," Harry said, trying to pretend that Skeeter's article itself didn't bother him as much as it did, "that stupid Dudders would bother speaking to just anybody about my agoramorphosis. He obviously doesn't like magic, so why would he be bothered with anyone in this world? Why does he hate me, and apparently not her?" Harry was almost whispering by the end, and he knew that he was unintentionally admitting to some of his very deepest darkest feelings about Privet Drive. He was glad that both Ron and Hermione understood completely.

"It'll be all right, Harry." Hermione promised. "You don't have to go back there, ever again. They never deserved you."

Harry nodded, feeling a bit comforted by her words. "Now, if Skeeter would just leave me alone…"

"I've got an idea." Hermione added, suddenly changing the subject. "Why don't we all wear our new robes for the rest of the day? I wouldn't be surprised if some of the testers decided to fail us today just because we look like ruffians!"

"Yeah." Ron agreed, grabbing his robe from one of the bags. "It might make them respect us a bit.more… not that they don't respect muggle clothing or anything, but…"

"That makes sense." Harry nodded, and shuffled through the bags for his new grey robe. He knew that there was a good chance that one or more of their testers were biased against muggles. It wasn't really something they had the power to change, so they'd best at least look like decent wizards.

They all headed back into Madam Malkin's fitting rooms to change.


	6. Animagii Testing

A/N: I did warn you that it'd take awhile. I guess I just didn't expect 'awhile' to mean three months. Yet again, I am a stupid inconsiderate fan fic writer. Just stay patient, and I promise that I will finish this one... eventually. 

Fudge Disclaimer: We here at the ministry are firmly committed to the rights and privileges of fan fic authors. It is something of which I have personally dealt with in the past, and intend to do so in the future. However at this point in time it can be said that fan fic writers must be willing to give up certain ahem... comforts... for the sake of the wizarding community as a whole. This is the way it must be in these troubled times what with You-Know-Who and his Death-Eaters about. That is all. Thank you.

Chapter Five – Animagii Testing 

They walked into The Leaky Cauldron at exactly eleven o'clock that morning, wearing their new robes, and carrying a good number of other interestingly shaped packages.

Hermione had bought nearly an entire bag full of books, which was a lot, considering the bag she'd brought was magically expanded on the inside and charmed to be lightweight.. Harry had only bought three books, and for once, he'd actually bought a bit of wizarding fiction. It was the first time he'd ever bought a book that wasn't for school, so he was eager to get reading. The book was an auror mystery book whose author had apparently been visiting the store that past week to sign books. It was called _'The Park Point Poltergeist',_ and he was eager to see how it compared to the bits of Muggle fiction he'd read.

Ron and Harry had both gone into Quality Quidditch Supplies, and Harry had bought himself a whole new set of seeker padding. His old ones were beginning to fray, and he thought he liked the look of the black ones better than his old brown set. Ron scraped the bottom of his pockets to buy a mid-range broom tuning kit, and a booklet that displayed and automatically updated the most recent scores of his favorite team, the Cannons. The booklet had been charmed shut until it was paid for, and Ron immediately winced when he'd opened it and taken a look at the latest statistics. The Cannons had never done well, but apparently they were having an even rougher season than usual.

They'd all gone into Fred and George's shop, and nearly bought the place out. Neither Harry nor Ron had to pay full price for anything. First off, Ron immediately got the 'Redhead discount', then on top of that, he was given a family discount. Harry didn't get either of those, but his 'benefactor discount' meant that he was pretty much paying the same price as Ron for everything. Ron tried not to let anyone see how disgusted he was by this. Harry had given the twins all of his winnings just over two years ago after he'd finished the tri-wizard tournament, and they'd put it to good use, opening the store. The truth was, Harry actually had to talk the twins into letting him pay anything at all, but he didn't want Ron to know that.

So they all walked into The Leaky at eleven o'clock. Remus and Tonks went immediately to the bar to chat with Tom, the barkeep. The other three walked over and deposited their purchases loudly onto the table right in front of a nearly oblivious Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood.

Neville leapt up in surprise and quickly hid his hands under the table, but Luna's large blue eyes wandered up to their faces as if they'd only slowly walked up to them. She didn't look at all surprised. Harry thought it might take more than an earthquake and seven or eight bombs going off to truly surprise her.

"Hello Harry," Luna nodded. "Ronald, Hermione," she added, as if they were only an afterthought. Ron's nose wrinkled at hearing his full name, and Hermione elbowed him tauntingly in the ribs.

"Guess what my Gran bought me!" Neville enthused, still holding his hands carefully out of sight under the table.

Harry couldn't guess what it was for the life of him, so he shrugged. "What is it then?" he asked.

Neville grinned, and brought his hands up above the table to reveal the bulging eyes and greenish-pink skin of a strange horned lizard. It was gripping his hands with tri-clawed fingers and had its tail carefully wrapped around Neville's pinky finger.

"New pet?" Ron asked.

"Yeah," Neville nodded excitedly. "Everyone, meet Albus."

Harry couldn't help but grin. It was likely that Dumbledore would have been honoured to be the namesake of such an ugly creature. "You named him after Dumbledore?"

"I thought it was appropriate. With those eyes, it's like he can see everywhere all at once. I guess I always thought Dumbledore knew everything. I also thought I should choose a name that was really worthy."

Hermione looked very closely at the creature, whose skin was now slowly turning a lighter shade of blue. "Er… what is it, exactly?"

"It's a chameleon. A Mood-Revealing Jackson's Chameleon, to be exact." Neville said, sounding pleased that he had something interesting to impart to Hermione. "We just bought him this morning. He'll be living on my plants at home, and he eats all sorts of bugs. Mostly crickets and things. He's an especially useful creature for someone like me who likes plants."

"Why is he called 'Mood-Revealing' then?" Hermione asked, sounding especially interested.

Neville smiled sheepishly. "He mostly just takes on the colour of whatever he's sitting on, but every once in awhile he'll pick up on an emotion of someone nearby and turn really brilliant crazy colours. Normal Jackson's Chameleons that aren't magical are supposed to be the least adaptable of all the Chameleons. They only have two colours; brown, and various shades of green, but Albus here has at least six that I've seen. I already saw him turn neon yellow once!"

"That's pretty cool Neville." Ron said, rubbing Albus softly on the side of his belly. The skin was strangely gritty, and made a scratching sound against Ron's fingers. "Didn't you want an owl or something?"

Neville shrugged. "My Gran already has one, and I can use her whenever I want to. I don't really need one, and Albus is really very good at helping take care of the plants."

Harry nodded, but he knew that Neville hadn't bought an owl for the very simple reason that he didn't want to own a pet that could chat with Hermione whenever she was in her animagus form. Hermione had once told them that Pig had a difficult time keeping his mouth shut about Ron.

Ron didn't know about this though, so he gave a nod of understanding to Neville. Luna had a very interesting dry smirk on her face.

A sudden flash of fire, and a soot-covered body fell from the fireplace. Only a few of the patrons bothered to look over. Most of them only looked to see if it was the person they were meeting up with, others, such as Tom made sure to aim their wands at the lump that fell to the hearth.

However, it was Ginny, and she looked especially disgruntled by the soot now covering her robe.

"Hey guys. Ready to go?" she asked, brushing away at the blackened stains. Harry waved his wand at her, performing a scourgifying spell, and she smiled gratefully at him. He wondered why she'd come by floo instead of by train the same way they'd come, but didn't have time to ask.

"Lunch first." Remus said, walking back over to their table carrying a plate full of sandwiches. "I know it's still early yet, but I'm sure you all want to be fed before your tests."

"Eat quickly." Tonks added. "Apparently there was some trouble in the alley a few minutes ago, and we should be getting as far as possible from it."

"What happened?" Ginny asked, squishing into the bench beside Harry.

Harry sighed, and tried to give her more room, but not too much of course. He liked having her lean up against him as she reached for a sandwich. He couldn't help but also think of Luna's wiry frame on his other side. He grinned madly. Today was going to be a very good day. He could feel it.

"Nothing big, just someone spotted two dementors in the alleyway behind the bank."

"Nothing big?" Harry hissed out in alarm, forgetting to think about the girls for a second. "How can dementors be nothing big?"

"Dementors are more dangerous in big groups. Ever since the Aurors have been asked to patrol Diagon alley, the dementors haven't really been a problem here. There's always someone nearby who can cast a patronus charm. Unless they decide to come in droves, there really isn't a chance of them hurting anyone, and even if they do come here, the Aurors can call in whatever back-up is needed."

Harry thought he didn't really see how a dementor could be harmless, but he decided to let Tonks have her illusions.

Remus put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I know you aren't exactly fond of the creatures, Harry. I know they affect you more than others, but you have to remember that not everyone goes through such an extreme reaction. Wizarding folk in general might find them a bit frightening, but they aren't really such a difficult thing for most aurors."

"Right," Harry said, feeling slightly embarrassed. How exactly was he supposed to become an auror and the savior of the wizarding world, if he went all clammy and sick whenever a creature passed by that was seen by other aurors as 'reasonably harmless'?

They all ate their sandwiches in relative silence, then set off back out into Muggle London, to go to the ministry again.

As Harry walked, he began to feel a little nervous. The first test was the animagus test, and even though he was quite comfortable turning into a lion, the idea of a test for such a thing made him shudder. Remus was also beginning to fidget a little, and Harry thought he might know something about what was to come.

He needn't have worried, really.

They entered the ministry, and went five floors down in the elevator. In the reception room of the 'beasts and beings' division of the ministry, Amos Diggory sat in one of the chairs reading the Daily Prophet. Harry fervently hoped he hadn't seen Rita Skeeter's article.

Diggory stood when he saw them, and smiled sheepishly. He was a tall man with thinning salt and pepper hair, a navy blue suit-robe, and a thin moustache that looked somewhat out of place under his nose. In all, he was a handsome man, and Harry was uncomfortably reminded of Cedric, his son, whose death Harry had witnessed in his fourth year. Harry had met mister Diggory once before Cedric's death, and the older man now seemed sadder and more subdued since then. "You're all here?" he asked quietly, counting heads.

"Yes, that's right." Tonks said.

"Lupin. Didn't know I'd be seeing you today." Diggory said in a conversational tone.

Remus looked nervously at the floor, and nodded. Harry was amazed at how unusual that sort of reaction was for his guardian. It was almost… childlike.

Then again, Harry remembered that this was the beasts and beings division of the ministry, so Remus must have had quite a bit of contact with the people here. Perhaps most werewolves had a healthy fear of this particular place. After all, Harry had heard many a horror story about the treatment of beasts and beings by ministry officials, and not all of them were from Remus. He wondered if Remus had ever had unpleasant dealings with Mister Diggory. Tonks patted Remus on the shoulder, and he smiled nervously at her.

"Follow me." Diggory said quietly, and walked them down the hall away from the reception. "I've secured one of the labs down here for us to test in. I'll explain the test a bit more when we get there."

He trotted a bit further, and stopped at a door whose narrow rectangular window revealed only stark white beyond.

He jingled an old-fashioned looking key in the lock, and the door opened to release a sudden cacaphony of sound. Squawks and chirps mingled with roars and barks. A few sounds were unrecognizable, and Harry knew they must come from the many magical animals that were being studied.

Diggory stepped inside and out of the way to reveal an array of cages clustered along the back wall. Interesting earthy and musty smells assaulted his nose, which for the most part wasn't too bad. A few of the cages smelled worse than a pubescent teen's month-old laundry hamper, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Along the side wall, under a line of charmed windows, were three long aquariums with strange fish and other interesting semi-aquatic creatures lazing about, sunning themselves on rocks.

There were three desks in the rooms, and nine wooden chairs; three to a desk. One open door led to what looked like a disorderly corner office.

"Er." Tonks spoke up. "Don't you actually have a proper testing facility?"

Remus nudged her in the side, and she looked at him with a confused expression.

"Well, no." said Mister Diggory. "This is mostly a research centre. We don't usually get a lot of animagi coming through here, so there's no real need for more than this. We just assume that the people who come in here will only expect it to be a little disorganized. We are studying creatures after all. It's a messy sort of business."

"Or perhaps they are torturing us, after all. Messy, humph! I'll have you know, we're quite clean!" A strange female voice said, and Harry spun around to see who had spoken.

"Harry?" Remus asked curiously.

"Who said that?" Harry asked.

Remus only gave him a confused look.

"She spoke." Said another, this time male, voice. "Never shuts up as a matter of fact."

"Huh?" Harry asked again. "Who else is here?"

The rest of his group looked at him askew then too, and Harry spun around, still looking for the source of the voices. No one else was there.

"Harry, do you realize you were just speaking in parseltongue?" Hermione said cautiously.

Harry's eyebrows raised, and the source of the voices clicked into his head. He smiled, and turned toward the aquariums. One of them had three very distinct serpentine faces peering out at him.

"Oh, I see." Harry said, now clearly hearing the hissing undertones to the words he was saying. "You scared me," he told the snakes. "I didn't expect anyone else to be here."

"She didn't mean to." The male snake said. "She's just ungrateful."

Harry turned to Remus again, this time making sure that he was speaking clearly in English. "Sorry. There are three snakes over there in that aquarium that are a being bit chatty."

"Three snakes!" came another voice. "Did you hear that? Three snakes! Well I never!"

Mister Diggory had gone very pale. "You're a parselmouth?"

Harry smiled wryly. "Yeah, I probably wasn't born one, but after this," he said, lifting his fringe and showing his scar, "well… Voldemort kind of gave me the ability."

"Right." Diggory said, releasing a breath of relief. "I guess that makes it all right. I don't really know of any parselmouths except for You-Know-Who."

"Well, now you do." Harry said, smiling.

"Just so you're aware," Diggory pointed to the aquarium, "those snakes over there are actually only one snake. Just one baby runespoor. I didn't know that parselmouths could speak to runespoors. I thought it was only normal snakes."

"I don't see any reason why not. I never actually spoke back to it, but I did hear a basilisk speak a few times, so I guess it's not that weird."

Diggory shook his head as if to release some confusion and dark thoughts. "Right, let's get back on topic. I should explain this test a bit."

He moved over to the office door, and everyone turned to face him, listening carefully. "I'll ask you about your animal, then get you to show it to me. Then I'll ask you to run around a bit and do what you do best while you're in the bodies of these animals of yours. I'll just need enough time to write down your markings and do a quick sort of sketch for the ministry records. Then I'll get you to transform only one part of your body; an arm or something and maybe just your voice-boxes-"

"Er… Just a part?" Ginny interrupted. "How are we supposed to do that?"

Harry's nerves stepped up a notch. He'd never done a semi-transformation before. How was it done?

"Oh, I keep forgetting that you didn't go through the proper channels. I don't mind if we skip that part. Usually that's what most people try first, just to make sure they've got the hang of it before the full transformation. Maybe you could practice it on your own later. It's really just to see how much control you have over the animal. Why don't you give it a try anyhow, and we'll see how you do."

Everyone nodded nervously.

"Right, I'll have to take a picture of both your animagus picture and your human one for the permit. As well."

Hermione moved to check her flyaway hair in the reflective glass of one of the fishtanks.

"So, in you go. One at a time then." He gestured to the office door.

"Right," Neville said, his brow beginning to sweat lightly. "I'll go first, and get it over with."

Everyone nodded, and Neville followed Diggory into the office, already shaking like a leaf.

Everyone pulled chairs out to take a seat. Ron held his hand out in front of his face, and tried to change just a part of it like Diggory had said. Hermione had also begun working on changing her foot into the claws of an owl.

"So, you're a runespoor then?" Harry asked conversationally, after walking back over to the side of the aquarium.

"Oh, ssso now he gets it right." The female voice said acerbically. "Only after he was _told!"_

"He doesn't mean anything by it." The first male voice said reprovingly, and he bopped his counterpart lightly on the top of her head.

"I should apologize then," Harry nodded. "I couldn't see you very well from over there."

"Why should you need to sssee us? Can't you smell us?" The third voice asked. "Do you not have a tongue?"

"Wizards don't work the same way you do. We sometimes need to see things before we can trust them. My sense of smell isn't strong enough to sense that you are a runespoor. Even my eyes aren't really good enough sometimes. I need to wear these glasses to clear everything up."

"You live behind glassss too?" the runespoor's middle head asked, lifting herself up to Harry's eye height. "We've lived behind glassss almossst all of our lives."

"I know how you feel," Harry said. "Once I let a boa constrictor go free. I don't believe he ever made it to Brazil, but it was a good try."

"You've releasssed one of our brothers?" The second male head asked.

"I tried." Harry said. "I can't help you though. I'm apparently not very good at snake rescue. I heard they caught him before he even left the reptile house."

"All of the animals here wish to leave. The only ones they can't contain are the phoenix and the unicorn, but the firebirds never come back to sssave us, and the unicorn would more likely skewer us with their horns than help us." The snake sounded slightly jaded about this. "They're both predators to us young ones anyway," he grumbled.

"So what do you eat?" Harry asked, hoping to keep himself occupied until his test.

"Ratsss and mice, mostly." The second male voice answered. "We even know how to hunt."

"Really?"

"Yesss. We've been able to go out on the hunt before. But we can't eat the humans."

"I would hope not." Harry said, "I am one."

"No, it's because they took out most of our venom. We can now only hunt smaller creatures."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did it hurt?"

The first male head nodded. "We ssstill feel pain in the roof of our mouths when we ssswallow."

They were silent in contemplation for another few minutes, while Harry gave his semi-transformation a go. Then Neville returned smiling triumphantly through the door of the office.

Not a minute after that Ron went in, Harry heard Diggory begin laughing hysterically in the office. Apparently he'd just realized what had happened in Hogsmeade the year before. Neville and Ron had gone out and saved countless people's lives in their animagus forms, and even though no one had known who they really were, the image of the fox and the pug were quite famous in wizarding circles. They'd even had a pub unintentionally named after them. Harry thought it was a much safer version of fame than the one he had. Only a few privileged people knew what had really happened in Hogsmeade. Ron and Neville were able to get their thanks just by having people mention their animagus forms.

He turned back to the runespoor. "How did you know what that man said earlier? Can you understand English?"

"Underssstand." Hissed the second male voice, "but not speak back. It is apparently an ability unique to Runespoors."

"The man said you were just a baby. How old are you?"

The first male head spoke. "We're perhaps twenty years old, but our kind lives so long that twenty years is nearly unimportant in that span."

"You've been living here for that long?"

The middle female head nodded. "We long for essscape. Are you sure you can't help us?"

"I would undoubtedly get into a lot of trouble." Harry explained.

The left head shuddered. "Punishment is _essspecially_ undesirable."

"Is it really so bad here?"

"It is said that some beings are tortured for acting human, and some beasts are punished for protecting themselves from the tests alone."

"You have tests done on you?" Harry asked, now feeling unaccountably guilty for being a member of the human race.

"Yes, you can see the scar upon Thessassa's back," the right head said, pointing to a splotch of redness on the female snake's torso. "She was attacked by a human, and they took out some of her insides. They said she shouldn't be allowed to have any children. They think we're dangerous."

The female head turned away and began to weep quietly.

"I'll see what I can do to get them to release you. I'm sure you've never done anything to hurt anyone."

"Not like that werewolf."

Harry's heart leapt into his throat. "What?"

"That man over there. He's a werewolf isn't he?"

"Yes, but…"

"He's got the scent of blood on him."

"But I can't believe that Remus would ever…He's not that sort…"

"Harry?" Remus walked over to the side of the aquarium. "I heard my name. What are you telling that runespoor about me?" He was smiling, and Harry knew there was no way he'd understood what the runespoor had just said. He couldn't have been telling the truth.

"Just telling him that you're my guardian." Harry said innocently.

"Well, you're next. Hermione says she's still not ready yet, and everyone else has gone."

Harry saw that everyone else was indeed smiling in relief, except for Hermione, who was crossing her eyes to look at her nose and mouth, which were small and slightly pointed like a beak. She seemed to have gotten it mostly right, but as always with Hermione, she wasn't happy until it was perfect.

Harry nodded, and said goodbye to the runespoor. He then crossed over and went into Diggory's office.

"You know you have a very unhappy runespoor out there." Harry said carefully.

Diggory chuckled. "Yeah, it's tried to escape three times. Once it even went around and ate all of our other rodent specimens. We don't know how she keeps doing it, but I'm sure it'll keep happening until she actually succeeds."

"You couldn't let her go?"

"Not really. I do feel for her, but Fudge always said he needed to have the dangerous animals studied, so we could combat them if necessary. We have to make it look like that's what we're doing. Bollocks, I say. I figure we could just leave them alone, they'll be alright. Besides, that one's never really experienced the wilderness. She wouldn't survive on her own now."

Harry nodded in understanding.

"So, let's get on with it, then." Diggory said, pulling out sheets of paper. "What is your animagus?" He asked very straightforwardly.

"I'm a lion."

Diggory smiled, not looking surprised as he marked something down on the page. He then pulled out a camera. "Picture, quickly now, smile."

Harry gave a rather forced smile, and the flash went off.

Diggory put away the camera again, and tapped his quill on the side of the desk once. "Might you be able to demonstrate for me now?"

"I would." Harry said, then thought the word _'transanimagus.'_

He felt his body being propelled down into the shape of the lion, and as always when he adopted the animal, he felt himself also adopt his alter-ego. It was like there were two beings inside of him. Harry, who was inherently human, and Greymane who was inherently lion.

"Please, do whatever you wish for a moment. I have to observe you." The man before him said crisply, and Greymane understood the command.

Greymane tilted his head to the side, and sniffed the air. He could see that the man was slightly disconcerted by this shape, and he knew he had to show him what a docile creature he could be. He lumbered over to the only blank wall the furthest away from him, and lifted up his claws, feeling that they were perhaps not quite sharp enough.

"No, no, stop!" Diggory yelled, interrupting him, and Greymane turned as if to ask _why?_ "Here, you can use this." Diggory said, and pointed his wand to the wall, conjuring a large patch of thick brown shag carpeting, which spanned the entire wall surface.

Greymane gave a short nod and a purr, and proceeded to tear the carpeting to shreds while Diggory observed him. In a back corner of his mind, he felt as if he were somehow on display, but it really didn't matter that much. Once the carpet was appropriately shredded, he began to pace the length of the room, stopping only once to attack what looked like a floating piece of dust. He finally laid down in the sunniest corner beneath the quite false looking ocean view window, and waited. He wondered why he'd been so nervous just a moment ago. This was easy!

Another minute passed in this manner, during which Greymane vaguely heard the click of the camera but disregarded it, before he was instructed to turn back into a human. "What's next?" Harry asked.

"Have you ever tried to just change just your voice? Ever tried to make the sound?"

Harry started to shake his head, but stopped halfway. The memory of his recent agoramorphosis made him wonder.

"I don't know." He finally answered. "I might have done it by accident once."

Diggory looked confused. "It's pretty difficult to make that sort of accident."

"I… Just trust me." Harry finally answered. "I might want to try it again, though. I think I remember what I did."

"Right, then. Give it a try." Diggory looked less than believing.

Harry closed his eyes, and tried to imagine what he had done during his agoramorphosis. He remembered the way his throat had sort of closed up when he'd spoken in the other animal languages.

"Right, I think I've got it." Harry said, but leapt back in alarm as the growl escaped instead. Diggory looked quite impressed, and marked those notes down in his pages.

_I did it!_ Harry said in lion, then realized that he didn't know how to change his voice back to human. He closed his eyes again, and imagined his way through his agoramorphosis.

_Did I do it? _He growled. _No, I guess not. Let me try again. _He added, despite the fact that Diggory clearly couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, and was patiently waiting for him to return his voice to normal.

Another minute passed as Harry recalled the memory of the way his throat had morphed during his agoramorphosis.

_There._

Harry yelped, as instead of lion speak or human speak, the voice that escaped was that of a _phoenix_. Even the sudden yelp of surprise came out as more of a squawk.

"What's that!" Diggory yelped. "Where'd that come from!"

_That's just Fawkes. _Harry trilled, trying to think about what exactly he'd done to get his voice to do this. _Apparently he likes to pop in every once in awhile. _He explained, still singing the words.

It took another minute of pondering, which wasn't very easy with Diggory hounding him for information in the background. He wouldn't be able to answer him in any sort of intelligible answer, so he mostly tried to ignore him.

"Did I get it?" Harry asked finally, and opened one eye and searched Diggory's face.

"I'd say you did." Diggory answered breathlessly.

"Are you sure? I'm not speaking parseltongue or something now, am I? Sometimes I can't really be certain."

"Nope, but I would recommend that when you go for your apparition testing, you ask about fire-flashing."

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"Well, it's completely impossible for a wizard to be a magical creature as an animagus of course, but sometimes you find people who have enough of that same sort of magic within them to take advantage of it. Only one out of every five hundred wizards or so are able to fire-flash the way phoenixes do. It's more common than learning to be an animagus, because it's something that shows itself to be inherent in your system as a hereditary thing, like parseltongue. You'll also want to ask about whether your parents were able to do it. It's not something you need to have a permit for, and I've heard that for some people it's easier than apparition."

Harry's head was spinning. He didn't quite know what Diggory was talking about. "So, it's like apparition?"

"Except you have to be the sort of person who has the ability in you to begin with, and there's no way to test for it, so you just have to try. I've heard it's a dangerous thing to attempt, but I'm not sure why. Still, if you're able to get that inner phoenix of yours to sing… You might just want to give it a go. Ask the apparition instructor about it, all right?"

"Okay." Harry said, not really knowing what he was getting into, and feeling a bit like he was in a daze.

"Right then, lets try something else. Can you change your hand into a paw?"

Harry demonstrated what he had been able to accomplish while he'd waited, which was only changing his nails into fierce looking black claws. Apparently this was acceptable for Diggory. He wrote up a temporary animagus pass, and handed it over to the smiling teen.

With the test complete, Harry walked out of the office with a somewhat vacant smile on his face. Hermione gave him a curious frown as she passed him.

Hermione returned ten minutes later, looking for some reason, slightly miffed.

"What, didn't he give you a pass?" Ron asked in alarm.

"Oh, of course." Hermione said quickly, waving the hand holding the bit of parchment to dismiss the comment. "It's just this." She handed him a second page, and Ron's eyes went wide as he scanned it.

"I asked Mister Diggory for a list of registered animagi." She said, looking very unhappy.

"Merlin!" Ron breathed. "We don't have anything on her now!"

"What? What is it? Who don't you have anything on?" Ginny asked, trying to look over her brother's shoulder.

"Rita Skeeter." Hermione spat. "We had her blackmailed not to write anything horrible about Harry. We promised we wouldn't tell anyone that she was a beetle animagus, as long as she didn't write any more sludge about Harry."

"It looks like she's nipped that in the bud by registering herself."

Harry groaned, and rolled his eyes. "That's why she wrote all that stuff about my agoramorphosis. Maybe she was even there! How else could she have known?"

Hermione's lips thinned out. "I don't think this is a coincidence. Somehow she's been able to register herself just as quietly as we have, so she must also have some reliable contacts in the ministry."

Harry looked at the list. Indeed, there was Rita Skeeter's name, last on the list, followed by a date early that spring, explaining when she was registered. Next to her name was a short explanation of _why _she had decided to become an animagi. It said: _For business reasons._

"She certainly didn't beat around the bush." Harry commented. "For business purposes means she can spy on anyone she wants, and get just the right scoop."

Ginny nodded. "And from now on, keep your eyes open for beetles."

Harry agreed with her wholeheartedly. "Gin, can I talk to you for a second?"

Ron raised his eyebrows in gleeful disbelief.

Harry shrugged. "I just have a sort of mission for you this afternoon if you want it."

Ginny nodded. "All right."

Harry pulled her into a quiet corridor for a moment, explained the problem, and carefully unloaded the cargo he'd stashed up the sleeve of his robe During Hermione's testing.

Ginny smiled mischievously as she helped curl it securely into the bottom of a quickly conjured backpack. She zipped it in, and Harry helped her load it on to her shoulders without jostling it too much.

"Thanks Gin. I think it'll really appreciate the move."

Ginny smiled at him. "I'll take good care of her-or rather him-or rather them..." she rolled her eyes and shrugged. "I promise."

"There'd better be lots of rats where we're going." Hissed a male voice from inside the backpack.

"There certainly are." Harry answered.


End file.
